Relieved after claiming his first rapid world title since 2003, Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand said he entered the tournament in a “pessimistic” frame of mind but managed to surprise himself and the world with an unbeaten campaign.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old, who had been drawing flak from critics for a string of sub-par performances in the recent past, hit back in style, by winning the World Rapid title in Riyadh on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“The last two rapid events were nothing short of disastrous. I came here in a pessimistic frame of mind. But it has just been the most wonderful surprise. But I played well,” Anand told PTI after his triumph.<\/p>\n
The former world champion remained unbeaten through the tournament and came back strongly to bag the top position on a tie-break after a three-way tie with Russians Vladimir Fedoseev and Ian Nepomniachtchi at 10.5 points from a possible 15.<\/p>\n
“…especially the London tournament was a big disappointment. It is not that I had high expectations of London, but still I expected to do well. But to finish in last place was a heavy blow.<\/p>\n
Anand said he felt good on the first day of the tournament as he played well and it reminded him of his glory days.<\/p>\n
“It was on the first day I felt I was playing well. It was as if time had stood still. I was back in time a few years when I was dominating rapid chess tournaments. That gave me a lot of confidence. On top of that, I beat Peter Leko in a very nice game. I was in a good frame of mind,” he added.<\/p>\n
He described the win against Norway’s world champion Magnus Carlsen as the crucial moment in the tournament.<\/p>\n
“The crucial moment was the win against Magnus Carlsen. Because he had come back after a defeat against Bu Xiangzhi. He seemed to be in great form, as always.<\/p>\n
“He has this amazing ability to win games on demand where he is just able to pull together these long streak . So at that moment I must admit I felt he was favourite for the final few rounds,” Anand said.<\/p>\n
“But, we had a very intense game, an intense Nimzo Indian. It is nice beating a player, who is so dominant in the blitz and rapid rating lists. To beat him was a real accomplishment. Of course, given our history, given the intense matches, there was that extra bit of feeling,” the Indian Grand Master added.<\/p>\n
Anand also said that towards the end he got worried that he might not even secure a podium finish but a series of unexpected twists and turns on the final day helped him land the top prize.<\/p>\n
“…the first three rounds ended in draws. I felt that I had lost the plot a little bit and in fact I was worried that I might not even be on the podium anymore.<\/p>\n
“I mean there were so many unexpected twists and turns. Magnus lost. Nepo (Ian Nepomniachtchi) had won his. A lot happened. But once the tie-break started and I got a big advantage in the tie-break game then I started to feel the wind was behind me,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It is so unexpected because I wasn’t even planning to come to this tournament, which was announced late. The most amazing feeling of all is to have the title of world champion again. I am so happy that I can’t describe it in words,” he added.<\/p>\n
His wife Aruna was delighted after the victory and said, “I was just very happy… almost wanted to be there when he did the fist pump.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Relieved after claiming his first rapid world title since 2003, Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand said he entered the tournament in a “pessimistic” frame of mind but managed to surprise himself and the world with an unbeaten campaign. The 48-year-old, who had been drawing flak from critics for a string of sub-par performances in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16392,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16390\/revisions\/16392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}