Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, becomes the youngest world chess champion in history
India’s 18-year-old prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju capped his meteoric rise by becoming the youngest world chess champion in history after beating Ding Liren 7½-6½ in a thrilling championship in Singapore.
The teenager, already the youngest challenger to challenge for the world title, earned the point needed in the final of the best-of-14 classic games to defeat defending champion Ding, earning his share of the $2 prize money .5 million.
He becomes India’s second world chess champion after five-time champion Viswanathan Anand, who last won the world title in 2013, becoming the youngest ever world champion to break Garry Kasparov’s previous record. In 1985, Kasparov, 22, dethroned Anatoly Karpov.
Gukesh was the in-form player entering the tournament but it was a tight battle throughout with the players scoring 6½ points each with one classic match remaining. Ding made a one-move blunder late in Game 14 that gave Gukesh the title-winning point and avoided tiebreaks.
Ding Liren (R) and Gukesh Dommaraju battle in Game 1 on November 25, 2024. (Roslan Rahmanroslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)
These have been remarkable years for the teenager, the son of a surgeon and a microbiologist. Until the summer of 2022, he was ranked exclusively as a junior. As a grandmaster of 12, seven months and seven days (the second youngest at the time), he has become the third youngest player to achieve a FIDE rating of 2,700 and the youngest to achieve a rating of 2,750. At age 17, in what was the final qualifying round for the world title, he overcame the odds and defeated more celebrated players at the Candidates Tournament to earn a title shot against Ding.
Ding, ranked 22nd in the world, has had a difficult reign as world champion and took a nine-month break from the sport last year for mental health reasons. Before this championship, he had not won a classic match since January and had played only 44 classic matches since winning the world title in April 2023.
He did well to put in a strong performance in Singapore, claiming a surprise victory in the opening match. Another win in the 12th game left the score deadlocked. It looked like Gukesh had secured a significant victory in Game 11 after a series of draws between the two, before Ding fought back in Monday’s Game 12. A draw in the penultimate game kept both within easy reach of the trophy.
(Top photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)
