 "India's Pranav wins World Junior Chess Championship: Meet 18-year-old GM who is Anand's student and Carlsen's 'buddy'")
Indians continue to rule the world of chess as Grandmaster Pranav Venkatesh of Bengaluru clinched the 2025 World Junior Championship at Petrovac, Montenegro, on Friday (7 March). The 18-year-old Pranav won the 2025 World Junior Chess Championship with a score of 9/11 after seven victories and four draws in a field of 157 players.
In the final round, unbeaten Pranav secured a draw against Lavrencic Matic of Slovenia to clinch the 2025 World Junior Championship title.
By winning the world junior crown, Pranav has followed in the footsteps of legends like Viswanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy.
Viswanathan Anand in 1987 became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship followed by Pentala Harikrishna (2004) and Abhijeet Gupta (2008). Koneru Humpy (2001), Harika Dronavalli (2008) and Divya Deshmukh (2024) have also won the world junior girls titles.
D Gukesh is the current World Chess Champion and the youngest of all time at 18, while Anand won the trophy five times in his storied career.
Who is Pranav Venkatesh?
Like Gukesh, Pranav is also trained by Anand at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA). However, earlier, he trained at BS Chess Academy in 2012-13. He later trained at the T Nagar Chess Academy.
Congratulations to the World Junior Champion Pranav Venkatesh.He has been in great form lately. Our @WacaChess mentee. He is very meticulous in his work and constantly analyses his own games , comes back with suggestions and takes feedback. You join a very prestigious line of…
— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) March 7, 2025
Pranav has worked under multiple coaches in his career, including Al Kasi, Srinivasa Rangan, WIM N Raghavi, Vijay Anand, GM Vishnu Prasanna and FM FT K Visweswaran.
Born in Bengaluru, Pranav is India’s 75th Grandmaster and received the title in August 2022. He achieved the first two Grandmaster norms at the Serbia Open in 2021 and the Vezerkepzo GM tournament in 2022. In August 2022, he clinched the Limpedea Open in Romania to become a Grandmaster. He currently has an Elo rating of 2615 and a world ranking of 140.
In live rating, he’s at 2628.3 and ranked 111.
When Carlsen called Pranav his buddy
In 2023, world No.1 Magnus Carlsen had posted a message on the social media platform X, praising Pranav and calling him a “buddy”.
“Pranav is buddy and buddy is Pranav,” Carlsen had written after Pranav, who was part of his Offerspill Sjakklubb team, helped them win the European Club Cup 2023. It was the first major team event win of Carlsen’s career.
Pranav is buddy and buddy is Pranav.
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) October 7, 2023
Pranav had been in good form lately before winning the world junior crown. He won the Challengers title at the Chennai Grand Masters 2024 in November and also clinched double gold at the World Youth Under-18 Open Rapid and Blitz 2024.
Pranav’s win came on a day Aravindh Chithambaram won the prestigious Prague Chess Maters 2025 .
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
