World champion D Gukesh fell to his third loss in a row at the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament on Thursday, September 11. The Indian Grandmaster lost to 16-year-old Turkish GM Ediz Gurel in the seventh round of the tournament. Having lost to USA's Abhimanyu Mishra and Nikolas Theodorou of Greece, Gukesh was not able to make the most of his rest day at the tournament. The 19-year-old blundered a bishop in the endgame to extend his losing streak.
Gukesh, who rose to fame after becoming world champion at the age of 18, now has three points from seven outings and needs to win all of his matches to stay in contention. The form slump concerned former player turned commentator Maurice Ashley, who took to X to state that this was not the Gukesh that they knew.
The Indian Grandmaster has the knack of taking games deep and outwitting his opponents with exceptional composure, but that does not seem to be the case at the moment.
"What is going on with Gukesh? This is not him," Ashley wrote on X.
Gukesh looked devastated the moment he realised that the game had got away from him. Earlier in the tournament, the Indian GM had stormed out of the playing hall in frustration after losing to Nikolas Theodorou.
Having said that, many fans came out in Gukesh's defence, reminding the chess world that Gukesh was only 19, and at this age he is doing exactly what he is supposed to do.
"Gukesh is doing pretty much exactly what any ambitious 19-year-old should be doing - he's playing all the time and always playing for a win. If he wasn't World Champion, a blip in form really shouldn't raise eyebrows. He is still at an age where improvement is the goal," wrote a user on X.
Meanwhile, Indian GM Nihal Sarin grabbed a share of the lead after a thrilling victory over overnight leader Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran. He is joined at the top by German GM Matthias Bluebaum, who defeated Arjun Erigaisi. Both have 5.5 points.
Seven players, including Vidit Gujrathi, Iranian-French star Alireza Firouzja, Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Americans Hans Niemann and Abhimanyu Mishra, are in joint second place with five points each. They all won their respective matches in the seventh round to move within half a point of the lead.
R Praggnanandhaa defeated Israeli GM Maxim Rodshtein to move to 4.5 points, joining 10 others that also include Erigaisi and Pranav Venkatesh.
In the women's section, defending champion Vaishali Rameshbabu regained the sole lead after defeating Chinese IM Guo Qi to register her fifth win of the competition.
GM Divya Deshmukh also picked up a win.
The top two from each section will make it to the Candidates tournament of 2026 that will determine the challenger for the next World Championship match in both men’s and women’s sections.
