India’s 18-year-old prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju capped his meteoric rise by becoming the youngest world chess champion in history after defeating Ding Liren 7½-6½ in a tense championship in Singapore.
The teenager, already the youngest challenger to compete for the world title, gained the point required in the final of the best-of-14 classic games to beat defending champion Ding, banking his share of the $2.5 million prize fund in the process.
He becomes India’s second world chess champion, following five-time champion Viswanathan Anand, who last won the world title in 2013, and, as the sport’s youngest-ever world champion, breaks the previous record held by Garry Kasparov. In 1985, Kasparov, 22, dethroned Anatoly Karpov.
Gukesh was the in-form player entering the tournament, but it was a tight contest throughout with the players level on 6½ points each with one classical game remaining. Ding made a one-move blunder late in Game 14, which handed Gukesh the title-winning point and prevented tiebreakers.
It has been a remarkable few years for the teenager, the son of a surgeon and a microbiologist. Until the summer of 2022, he was solely ranked as a junior. A grand master aged 12, seven months and seven days (the second-youngest at the time), he has gone on to become the third youngest player to reach a FIDE rating of 2,700 and the youngest to achieve a rating of 2,750.
Ding, ranked 22nd in the world, has had a difficult reign as world champion, taking a nine-month break from the sport last year for mental health reasons. Before this Championship, he hadn’t won a classical game since January and had only played 44 classical games since winning the world title in April 2023.
He did well to put in strong performances in Singapore, claiming a surprise win in the opening game. Another victory in the 12th game left the tie deadlocked. It had seemed that Gukesh had claimed a significant win in Game 11 after a series of draws between the two before Ding fought back in Monday’s Game 12. A draw in the penultimate game left both within touching distance of the trophy.
Source link
