Bengaluru: It got here down to 2 Indian co-leaders within the last spherical of the Tata Metal Masters – reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. As luck would have it, Gukesh’s first loss as world champion ended up arriving on the day he may least afford it. In Spherical 13 in Wijk Aan Zee, the 18-year-old world champion misplaced to fellow Indian Arjun Erigaisi, and all Praggnanandhaa wanted was a draw in opposition to Vincent Keymer to turn out to be champion. In a day of excessive drama and twists, Praggnanandhaa ended up shedding to Keymer and an all-Indian tiebreak adopted.
R Praggnanandhaa defeated D Gukesh within the tiebreaker to win the Tata Metal Masters title. (PTI)
Within the two-game blitz play-off match of three minutes with a two-second increment per transfer, Gukesh began with the White items after a draw of tons. Praggnanandhaa blundered, misplaced his rook and was confronted with the duty of hanging with White within the second recreation to maintain the tie-break going. After seven hours of classical play, Praggnanandhaa will need to have been understandably spent. He nonetheless managed to land a blow with White and the match entered ‘sudden death’ territory. Praggnanandhaa had the White items subsequent and the Queens have been off fairly early. Gukesh ended up over-extending in an equal endgame, squandered away a bit and sank again in his chair in despair. It was throughout for the world champion and Praggnanandhaa walked away with the most important match win of his profession up to now in a becoming finale.
Praggnanandhaa turned the primary Indian after five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand to win the Tata Metal Masters title in Wijk Aan Zee. Anand has received the match 5 instances, the primary time being in 1989. It’s after 19 years that an Indian has once more received the title. Praggnanandhaa, who began the match ranked 14 on the earth, moved as much as world No 7 within the stay scores.
Praggnanandhaa is coming off a reasonably quiet yr. In a yr when Gukesh turned world champion and Arjun rocketed up the rankings and put up a stellar present on the Olympiad to win a person gold, Praggnanandhaa didn’t appear to match the firepower of his compatriots on the board. A few of it could possibly be right down to the 19-year-old selecting to play a bit too stable within the main elite occasions. Within the Dutch city on the North Coastline over the previous two weeks although, Praggnanandhaa appeared to have discovered his groove after some time and entered Sunday’s last spherical tied for first place with Gukesh.
Arjun, who had a troublesome outing, discovered redemption within the fag finish, taking down two of the match’s strongest gamers – Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh on successive days, giving his buddy Praggnanandhaa an opportunity to win the match outright.
Curiously, Gukesh got here fairly near successful the title final yr as effectively. He misplaced to Wei Yi within the tiebreaks then. Till the ultimate spherical this time, Gukesh had an unbelievable match, shifting as much as world No 3 within the stay scores. Arjun selected to play the Petroff and went on to mount an assault on White’s King. Gukesh, who often manages to seek out the assets to wriggle out of sticky conditions on the board, sat there shaking his head in disappointment earlier than resigning after 31 strikes.
Pentala Harikrishna, who additionally served on Gukesh’s workforce for the World Championship, helpfully held Abdusattorov to a draw within the last spherical, snuffing out all title hopes for the Uzbek GM and making certain that the title can be claimed solely by an Indian. The 14-player Masters part featured 5 of the world’s high ten gamers, and, in an indication of the instances, it was two Indians combating to take house the title.