Indian GM R. Praggnanandhaa scored over Anish Giri to begin his campaign strongly.
| Photo Credit: FIDE
The year’s biggest chess tournament got off to an exciting start at Pegeia, Cyprus, on Sunday. And it was a good day at the Candidates for India too, as R. Praggnanandhaa scored a fine win against his higher rated Dutch rival Anish Giri.
The open section of the Candidates also saw Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov outwit Andrey Esipenko of Russia. Before that, Maatthias Bluebaum of Germany and Wei Yi of China drew their game. In the women’s Candidates, all the four games were drawn.
After Koneru Humpy pulled out, there are still two Indian women in the field. Vaishali, Praggnanandhaa’s elder sister, drew with Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan, while Divya Deshmukh split the point with Ukraine’s Anna Muzychuk, Humpy’s late replacement.
Praggnaanandhaa faced Sicilian Defence from Giri and he won a king-side pawn on 28th move. The Chennai Grandmaster followed it up with an excellent pawn push on the same file.
Before long, Giri made a costly mistake with his knight, on the 36th move, when he should rather have pushed his pawn. Praggnananandha did well to press on the advantage he was presented with, and went on to win in 51 moves.
The results (first round): Open: Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb) bt Andrey Esipenko (Rus); Matthias Bluebaum (Ger) drew with Wei Yi (Chn); R. Praggnanandhaa bt Anish Giri (Ned); Fabiano Caruana (USA) bt Hikaru Nakamura (USA).
Women: Divya Deshmukh drew with Anna Muzychuk (Ukr); R. Vaishali Rameshbabu drew with Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kaz); Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus) Kateryna Lagno (Rus); Zhu Jiner (Chn) drew with Tan Zhongyi (Chn).
Published – March 30, 2026 12:15 am IST
