Panaji, Nov 27: Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov beat China’s Wei Yi to win the FIDE World Cup here on Wednesday, becoming, at 19, the youngest ever player to achieve the feat.The Uzbek was an overwhelming favourite of Grandmaster Sahaj Grover, who minced no words while placing his money on Sindarov once the quarterfinals arrived.
As it turned out, Wei Yi played out another easy draw with white pieces but Sindarov was at his best as he cracked through white’s defenses in the second game itself.
The Uzbekistan youngster went home richer by USD 120000 (over Rs 1 crore) despite starting as the 16th seed in a competition that is known for its heartbreaks.
Both Sindarov and Wei will play in the Candidates and the latter earned USD 85000 for his performance here over the last few weeks.
As things stand, Sindarov, Wei Yi and Andrey Esipenko of Russia are the qualifiers from this World Cup, and they will be joined by Fabiano Caruana of the USA, Anish Giri of Holland and Matthias Bluebaum of Germany.
R Praggnanandhaa and Hikaru Nakamura are almost certain to make it unless a hurricane hits the chess circuit.
Sindarov has come out as the second biggest star from Uzbekistan after Nodirbek Abdusattorov and it seems that the Russian dominance in the sport has finally ended. It remains to be seen how far the Uzbek stars continue to dominate, but for now, it is clear that it is not Europe sans Magnus Carlsen but Asia that dominates the chess world.
Sindarov simply dominated Wei Yi right from the early stages of the middle game even thought the computer gave a different evaluation. As the game took shape in the middle game out of an Italian open from the second game, Sindarov had things to worry but he activated his rooks just in time to cause the final damage.