How Praggnanandhaa went from a quiet 12 months to a historic title

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Bengaluru: In a 12 months during which Gukesh turned world champion and Arjun Erigaisi made an astounding climb up the world rankings, one Indian title that wasn’t heard as a lot was Praggnanandhaa. He defeated Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana at Norway Chess within the first half of the 12 months, however because the months handed, his compatriots outshone him with extraordinary performances.

Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa poses with the trophy after profitable the Tata Metal Chess Masters 2025 by beating World Champion D Gukesh in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. (Tata Metal)

On Sunday, in a Dutch village on the North Beach, Praggnanandhaa flicked away a quiet 12 months with a hell-raising efficiency.

He defeated reigning world champion and fellow Indian Gukesh in a dramatic tiebreak to change into solely the second participant from India, after Viswanathan Anand, to win the Tata Metal Masters title in Wijk Aan Zee. The event, steeped in custom, dates again to 1938, with Mikhail Tal, Mikhail Botvinnik, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen amongst its previous winners. Praggnanandhaa will now be a part of these greats on the hallowed Wijk Aan Zee Wall of Fame — a wall he would stare upon on each journey to the event.

“When I came here, I wanted to win the event, but the field was very strong,” the 19-year-old stated after near eight hours of play on Sunday. He has Arjun to thank for taking down Gukesh, his co-leader, in Spherical 13. “I should buy Arjun something.” Praggnananandhaa laughed.

With this win, Praggnanandhaa has moved to world No 7 and brought second spot within the Fide Circuit leaderboard with 25 factors. Former world champion Ding Liren leads the standings with 40.64 factors. On the finish of the 12 months, whoever tops the circuit leaderboard will discover a place within the eight-player 2026 Candidates that may decide who performs Gukesh on the subsequent World Championship.

Praggnanandhaa spent most of final 12 months shuttling to tournaments and maintaining with a packed enjoying calendar. It’s one thing he’s prone to keep away from, this 12 months. “That was one of the problems last year,” says his mentor RB Ramesh. “He was not getting enough time between tournaments to address any issues. There was no way to course correct. We decided that it was time to cut down on tournaments this year. We managed to spend the last couple of months doing some work. That may have helped in Wijk Aan Zee.”

There was additionally some spade work put in to convey a few swap in his mentality. “After his results last year, I felt that he needed to be more aggressive and ambitious mentally, not be content with not losing and to try to play for a win against everyone with both colours. It seemed like he had become probably a bit too professional in his games, where he was going purely by merits. When that happens, you lose some of your creativity and risk-taking ability. A switch could only happen if his mind was aligned with approach. We had a chat about it and it seems to be working. He is trying to win games now and you can see automatically the number of draws has dropped.”

The teenager’s ambition and starvation for wins was additionally evident within the method during which he managed to recuperate shortly after losses in Wijk Aan Zee. After his Spherical 9 defeat to Anish Giri, Praggnanandhaa reeled off three successive wins – in opposition to Vladimir Fedoseev, Caruana and Alexey Sarana. Heading into the ultimate spherical, he was tied for the lead alongside Gukesh.

On Sunday, on the finish of a fortnight-long event, battling fatigue and nerves, the second of fact arrived. Arjun demolished Gukesh and handed Praggnanandhaa an opportunity to win the event outright. All he wanted was a draw in opposition to Germany’s Vincent Keymer.

Strain is usually a humorous factor. He ended up dropping after seven hours of play and it was again to a battle between him and Gukesh. The world champion who had misplaced early within the night, had a while to relaxation and spent his time earlier than the blitz playoffs enjoying 3-minute puzzle rush. Pragnananandhaa who barely had time to catch his breath, spent his time earlier than the deciding tiebreak, along with his mom Nagalakshmi and sister Vaishali.

He began off by blundering and dropping the primary blitz sport and for the second time in what was an inordinately lengthy day for him, he needed to summon the reserves and the desire to mount a comeback. He received the subsequent two video games and the largest event of his profession and left the enjoying corridor, giddy with exhaustion and pleasure.

“We wanted to take a shot at qualifying for the World Championship last year but things didn’t go our way,” says Ramesh. “It was kind of disappointing. This year it’s our goal for him to qualify for the Candidates so that he can try to get into the World Championship next year. This is a good start.”