GM Zindarov wins the 2026 candidates competition and starts a world championship battle with Gukesh

Uzbekistan Grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov won the Cyprus Chess Championship with an unprecedented dominant performance and set up a world championship match against current champion D Gukesh of India.The 20-year-old has won six of 13 matches without losing a draw with Dutchman Anish Giri in the 13th round on Tuesday to seal a round at the Chess Candidates Championship in Cyprus. His score jumped to 9.5 points and Geary’s to 7.5 points. If Gukesh winning the candidate race in 2024 was shocking, then Zindarov winning the candidate race in 2026 would be shocking and awe-inspiring. In 2024, Gukesh defeated Chinese player Ding Liren in the 14th and final game of the competition and won.Of the previous seven candidates for the format since 2013, only V Anand (2014) and Ian Nepomniachtchi (2022) had won the event before the previous round. Whether Zindarov’s challenge ends with a winning move will be decided in a few months via a new chapter in the Indo-Uzbek rivalry with Guksh, which the new prince is expected to have in mind.The match between Gukesh and Zindarov will be the “youngest ever world chess champion duel”, with the two men’s combined age being 40 years old, breaking the record set by Magnus Carlsen against Sergei Karjakin in 2016, when both were 26 years old. Zindarov declined to name the two seconds he was working on remotely, saying it could be done after his match with Gukesh. His coach is IM Roman Vidonyak and general manager Mukhiddin Madaminov is his second coach.“Last week was difficult. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to be in the top three and show that I was not lucky enough to qualify for this tournament,” Zindarov told FIDE Webcast. Compared with Indian players who work 10 hours a day, Zindarov said that after becoming the general manager in 2019, he did not work hard enough. “I used to play Counter-Strike (the video game) a lot. After the quarantine, I started working hard.”When asked about his favorite venue to play against Gukesh, he said: “I don’t want to play in cold Uzbekistan. I want a hot country like Cyprus.”He told the FIDE broadcast that he was happy to have finished the match before the final round.