NEW DELHI: Uzbekistan's Javokhir Sindarov came into the FIDE World Cup in Goa as the 16th seed and went on to win it, becoming the youngest champion in the event’s history at just 19. Just a few months earlier, India’s Divya Deshmukh, only one day younger than the Uzbek Grandmaster, had done something very similar. She became the youngest-ever Women’s World Cup winner after entering the tournament as the 15th seed.
Is there a pattern here, perhaps a hidden trend evading the watchful eyes of the strongest players, or is it simply a coincidence?
Dutch No. 1 Anish Giri, who came to Goa for the World Cup despite having already booked his place at the 2026 Candidates through his FIDE Grand Swiss victory, believes there isn’t too much to read into the 15th and 16th seeds winning the Women’s and Open titles, respectively.
"First of all, 15 and 16 seeds are not the middle at all. It's the top. So Divya and Sindarov were both among the favourites, but perhaps within the favourites, they were not at the very forefront. For example, Arjun (Erigaisi) and Vincent Keymer and Gukesh (Dommaraju), obviously Praggnanandhaa (Rameshbabu), were more favoured, but Sindarov was not a surprise. He is an elite player. And the same goes for Divya," Giri told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction.
"I think it's a coincidence, frankly. I think if you ran this tournament 100 times, the top 10 participants would score more victories than the people ranked between 10 and 20," added the 31-year-old Grandmaster, who will return to India next month for the third season of the Global Chess League, scheduled to take place at The Royal Opera House in Mumbai from December 13 to 24.
Giri also believes the two-game match format is too short to clearly show the real gap in strength between the top 100 players.
"I do think that ratings are still there for a reason, but the gap is too small now to show in the short run. And when you have a two-game match, you can play someone rated from the top 100 in the world, but you can't tell the difference in a two-game match. You need more games if you want to really be reliable," he explained.
"What I mean is that Vincent Keymer is an amazing player who can win the World Cup, or Grand Swiss or any of those. But Sindarov is also a really great player who can also win. And Vincent Keymer was a more likely favourite to win than… or Praggnanandhaa was more likely to win than Sindarov."
"If we played the World Cup 1,000 times, Sindarov would win 20 times, and Praggnanandhaa would win 40 times. But we just ran it once, and it happened this way," he added.
"But it's fine this way. I mean, still, in the end, the great player wins; I'm just saying the upsets are more likely."
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Read MoreJyotirmoy Halder is a journalist and sports writer at TOI (digital), with a post-graduation in English Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. A passionate follower of sports since childhood, he has covered everything from mainstream to niche disciplines. His career began in 2018 with SportsKeeda, followed by roles at Fansided and Get Football, where he primarily covered European football. Experienced in digital storytelling, data analysis, and athlete interviews, Jyotirmoy now works as a Digital Content Producer with The Times of India's sports team.
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