Praggnanandhaa wins UzChess Cup Masters, turns into top-ranked Indian

The win took Praggnanandhaa’s dwell ranking to 2778.3, making him World No. 4 — up three locations — as he achieved his highest profession rating.

The 19-year-old leapfrogged world champion D. Gukesh (2776.6) and Arjun Erigaisi (2775.7), who was India’s top-ranked participant till Thursday (June 26, 2025) however has now slipped to World No. 6.

Magnus Carlsen (2839.2) stays No.1, adopted by Hikaru Nakamura (2807.0) and Fabiano Caruana (2784.2).

Praggnanandhaa began the ultimate day some extent behind native favorite Nodirbek Abdusattorov and half some extent behind Javokhir Sindarov. An important win over Abdusattorov within the ultimate spherical helped him be part of each gamers at 5.5 factors on the finish of the round-robin stage.

Erigaisi missed an opportunity to make it a four-way tie after drawing with Aravindh Chithambaram. In the primary spherical of tiebreaks, a double round-robin blitz, all three gamers completed with two factors.

Abdusattorov and Sindarov drew each their video games, whereas Praggnanandhaa beat each with white however misplaced with black. In the second tiebreak, Praggnanandhaa drew with Abdusattorov with white and beat Sindarov with black.

Sindarov’s win over Abdusattorov sealed the title for the Indian.

This was Praggnanandhaa’s third title of the yr, after wins on the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and the Grand Chess Tour Superbet Classic in Romania.

He was additionally runner-up on the Stepan Avagyan Memorial earlier this month.

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand congratulated Praggnanandhaa on social media, posting: “Congrats to @rpraggnachess for successful the Uzbekistan Chess Cup. Third main classical victory this yr. Of all his wins this yr, this one appeared the least seemingly with simply two rounds to go.”

He continued, “However, he defeated Arjun Erigaisi and as we speak within the essential match defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov to tie for first place.”

“In a formidable demonstration of character he gained his third tiebreak of the yr as nicely. He is deservedly the brand new quantity 4 within the chess world and the very best rated participant in India,” he concluded.