Praggnanandhaa becomes first Indian to qualify for Candidates 2026

Indian Grandmaster (GM) R Praggnanandhaa has secured his spot successful the Candidates 2026 tourney by winning the FIDE Circuit 2025, becoming the lone antheral subordinate to correspond India.The Chennai-based Grandmaster has demonstrated exceptional show passim the year, securing victories astatine aggregate prestigious tournaments, including the Wijk Aan Zee Masters, Superbet Chess Classic Romania, UzChess Cup Masters, and London Chess Classic Open.

His awesome tally besides includes a second-place decorativeness astatine the Stepan Avagyan Memorial and 12th Sinquefield Cup. He reached the 4th circular successful the caller FIDE World Cup earlier being eliminated.The Candidates tourney has confirmed 7 of its 8 participants. These see Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, Matthias Bluebaum, Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi, and Andrey Esipenko, alongside Praggnanandhaa.The last spot successful the tourney remains open. The enactment criteria for this presumption is elaborate successful FIDE's qualification handbook: "The eighth spot volition beryllium clinched by the subordinate with the highest six-month mean standing based connected FIDE Standard Rating Lists from August 1, 2025 till January 1, 2026, provided the respective subordinate has played astatine slightest 40 games calculated for FIDE Standard Rating Lists from February 1, 2025 till January 1, 2026 (including astatine slightest 15 games successful immoderate of the six consecutive standing lists).

"If the existent inclination is thing worthy believing, American GM Hikaru Nakamura could articulation the database soon.

The Candidates 2026 is scheduled to instrumentality spot astatine the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort successful Pegeia, Cyprus, betwixt 28 March and 16 April 2026.Three Indian pistillate players successful Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Humpy, and R Vaishali person qualified for the Women's Candidates tourney adjacent year.ALSO READ: 'Mango, Paneer, and ...': Not conscionable chess connected Russian GM Volodar Murzin's caput arsenic India hosts GCL for archetypal clip | Exclusive