Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler said he would not be surprised to see two Indian players competing for the World Chess Championship title in the near future, given the country’s rapid rise in the sport. (More Sports News)

India's D. Gukesh is set to face reigning champion Ding Liren of China at the World Championships starting Monday.

“It wouldn’t be a shock, for sure,” Svidler told FIDE when asked about the possibility of two Indians contesting the title.

“Qualifying to the World Championship match is difficult, even players like Arjun (Erigaisi)'s dominance this year, the amount of points he scores everywhere he plays is absolutely unbelievable but this is still not the World Championship cycle."

Svidler said though world championships brings "additional pressure", it wont be a "surprise" if Indian players remain in the contention for at least next decade and a half.

"First of all he (Arjun) still needs to qualify for the cycle. He has a lot of circuit points and he might do well in the World Cup and so on but still nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the cycle. And then candidates presents its own challenges," he said.

"So you can never say that it will definitely happen. But it’s not going to be a surprise if, let’s say, Arjun or Prague qualify for the next cycle or the cycle after the next. They will be part of the conversation for the next, to me it feels like, 10–15 years, however long they want to continue playing chess seriously.”

A shadow of his former self: Svidler on Ding’s current form

Svidler believes Liren is far from his peak, describing him as a “shadow” of the “scary” player he once was.

“As for Ding, I think the way he was playing, let’s say if we take the period between 2017 and 2019 when he was consistently a very big threat to Magnus in tournaments. He won a tiebreak against Magnus in St. Louis to win the Grand Chess Tour. Not very many people win tiebreaks against Magnus. He was a very, very scary player,” Svidler said.

“And then Covid happened and Ding that we see now is a shadow, honestly. I don’t think you can describe it in any other way. He is just not anywhere near the top that we know he is capable of.”

Svidler said both Ding and Gukesh are versatile players who excel across formats, making stylistic comparisons less relevant at the elite level.

“I don’t think stylistic things matter, in particular at this level. Like, they’re both strong enough that I think when you start talking about like proper, let’s say top 10, top 5 players in the world, when both of them at their best are top 5 players in the world,” he said.

“You can no longer really claim that you know what the style is. They’re absolutely all-around players. I mean, if we take Ding circa 2019 and we play that person against Gukesh, that is a very, very unclear match.

“In fact, I would say maybe it’s ever so slightly Ding-favored. But we haven’t seen that player in a while. So yeah, I mean, I very much hope I’m wrong.”

India poised for dominance in team chess

India had clinched the gold medals in both the men's and women's categories at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary.

Svidler believes India’s extraordinary line-up of young players will make the country a dominant force in team chess events for years to come.

“There is definitely a project being underway in India which results in... I mean this generation is just absolutely fantastic and I think they will be dominant,” said Svidler, who was part of five Russian Olympiad-winning teams.

“I mean they’re not going to win every single Olympiad and every single team tournament from now on until you know the rest of chess history because competition is fierce but they are going to be an absolutely dominant presence fighting for gold in every single team tournament from now until...

“Honestly, I don’t foresee it ending because I’m pretty sure there’s more kids coming up who we perhaps have not heard of yet.”

Svidler credited five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand for inspiring and mentoring the new generation.

“You have to trace it back, I guess, to the absolutely fantastic role that Vishy as a role model and also now as somebody who is very involved helping this generation, in terms of mentoring and providing resources and encouragement.

“Of course without him there would not be such interest in the sport and you cannot really overstate just how important Vishy has been in creating this generation.”