NEW DELHI : Former Chess World champion Viswanathan Anand praised R Praggnanandhaa for finishing second in the International Chess Federation World Cup, saying that the result was ‘truly wonderful’.
Viswanathan motivated Praggnanandhaa on his social media handle after he missed winning the Chess World Cup title, facing a defeat from World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen.
“Praggnanandhaa can come back with a candidates spot and a truly wonderful result,” Anand wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
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Carlsen defeated Praggnanandhaa and won the Chess World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan on Thursday.
The Norwegian chess grandmaster won the first game of the Rapid Chess tie-breaker with black pieces and managed to hold on for a draw in the second game with white pieces. The tiebreaker is played in a Rapid Chess quicker-time control format. Praggnanandhaa fought hard but fell short with Carlsen summoning all his big match experience when it mattered the most.
Earlier on Wednesday Praggnanandhaa and Carlsen drew both their games of Classical Chess.
Praggnanandhaa had to settle for the position of runner-up of the 2023 FIDE World Cup but he will draw hope from the fact that he has qualified for the FIDE Candidates tournament.
The 2024 Candidates Tournament will be an eight-player chess tournament scheduled to be held from 2 April to 25 April 2024 in Toronto, Canada. The winner of the tournament will become the challenger for the 2024 World Chess Championship match.
Praggnanandhaa had an excellent tournament where he defeated World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura in a tie-breaker while reaching the final defeating World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana. (ANI)
