 "Anand throws weight behind Gukesh on upcoming Norway Chess showdown against Carlsen: 'I expect a very exciting battle'")
Gukesh Dommaraju hasn’t been having a great run in Freestyle Chess this year, the reigning Classical world champion having flopped in consecutive events in the Grand Slam Tour now. After failing to win a single game in the opening event in Weissenhaus, Gukesh failed to progress to the quarter-finals of the Paris leg earlier this week, finishing 11th out of 12 competitors at the end of the round-robin stage.
His campaign in the ‘City of Light’ would then conclude with a 1.5-0.5 defeat at the hands of Richard Rapport in their 9th-12th place playoff match.
Gukesh will not lack the motivation or determination: Anand
Despite his struggles in the unpredictable format that is Freestyle Chess, Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand has backed Gukesh to put up a solid fight against world No 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen in Norway Chess later this year.
“I expect a very exciting battle. Gukesh will not lack the motivation or determination to go after Magnus Carlsen. But Magnus is also highly motivated by the challenge of playing against our young players.
“I’ve seen him in multiple tournaments; whether it’s Kolkata or the World Rapid Blitz, he eagerly looks forward to these match-ups and so we have the perfect storm. I think we have the right to expect some great battles,” Anand, a five-time world champion and former world No 1 himself, said at an event hosted by Norway Chess and the Sports Journalists Association of Mumbai (SJAM) in Mumbai.
It’s worth noting that while Gukesh has struggled in Freestyle Chess this year, he had a red-hot run in the Classical format last year and nearly won the Tata Steel Chess event in February, losing to R Praggnanandhaa in the tie-breaks.
And while Gukesh has lost both of his meetings with Carlsen in Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour so far this year, he will be facing the 34-year-old in the Classical format for the first time since being crowned world champion at Norway Chess.
The event will be taking place between 26 May and 6 June and will feature some of the biggest names in the sport including Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Arjun Erigaisi and Wei Yi besides Carlsen and Gukesh.
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