India has been highflying in chess recently, and the icing on the cake was D Gukesh’s World Championship victory in Singapore last year, where he defeated Ding Liren. Meanwhile, Koneru Humpy also became the Women’s World Rapid Champion.
The current live chess rankings have three Indian GMs in the top-ten, with Gukesh in third position, behind Magnus Carlsen and second-placed Hikaru Nakamura. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi is in fifth position and R Praggnanandhaa is eighth.
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After his sensational Prague Masters campaign, Aravindh Chithambaram had a huge jump, climbing eight places higher to World No. 14. Meanwhile, India legend Viswanathan Anand has fallen to 15th.
Viswanathan Anand on India's young GMs
Recently, Anand spoke to TV9 Telugu, where he was asked about India’s new GMs, and he passed his verdict on the likes of Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Arjun.
“In some ways we already are the superpower in chess. There are many metrics by which we are. There are many measures by which some of the country is. We are not dominant like the Soviet Union used to be, but if you take for instance the age of our top players with me as an exception, well I think the oldest one is 21,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“In some ways we already are the superpower in chess. There are many metrics by which we are. There are many measures by which some of the country is. We are not dominant like the Soviet Union used to be, but if you take for instance the age of our top players with me as an exception, well I think the oldest one is 21,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“They're all incredibly young which means they have a long time ahead. Second. they are all in the top 10 together or in the top 20 top 50, then the number keeps increasing. They're all there together and can you imagine how fantastic that is for us because they will not only try to have the best results, but the moment one of them has a good result, all the others will be motivated to catch up. So they have this beautiful combination of friendship and rivalry,” he added.
Recently, Nihal Sarin also climbed two spots higher in the rankings, and is currently World No. 41. Meanwhile, Vidit Gujrathi is 24th and Harikrishna Pentala is 30th.