17-year-old Indian becomes youngest-ever Candidates winner in World Chess Championship

Doha, Qatar: Four players were vying for the top spot at the FIDE Candidates Tournament and the 17 year old Indian prodigy Gukesh D emerged victorious...

Doha, Qatar: Four players were vying for the top spot at the FIDE Candidates Tournament and the 17-year-old Indian prodigy Gukesh D emerged victorious in Toronto. 

After holding second seed Hikaru Nakamura of USA to a draw, Gukesh D had to wait for the result of the game between Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana of the United States to play out to know the outcome. Since that ended in a draw, Gukesh won to become the youngest World Chess Championship Challenger in history.   

He will now have a chance to become the youngest World Champion when he faces China's Ding Liren at the end of this year. Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov were 22 when they became the champions.  

After being declared the winner of the FIDE Candidates, in an interview Gukesh said, "Right now, I am so relieved and so happy. I was following this crazy game (Caruana vs Nepomniachtchi), and I was completely emotional, but now, after the game finished, I'm feeling quite good."