Dommaraju Gukesh and India’s chess comeback
Live MintIt isn’t often that an Indian athlete prevails over a Chinese competitor, but that happened last week in Singapore. Eighteen-year-old Indian grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest-ever undisputed world chess champion by defeating 32-year-old Ding Liren of China in the final game of a 14-game championship. In India, “there’s now more strength at the top than before," says Susan Ninan, a sports writer who has written extensively about chess in India, in an email interview. Unlike in the U.S., where top players could probably stroll through New York or Los Angeles without being recognized, in India chess stars are household names. “In the past five years, India has become one of the powerhouses of chess, alongside traditional chess powers like Russia and the U.S." India’s chess champions aren’t as widely known as the country’s cricket or Bollywood stars, but they are nevertheless a source of national pride.