Tournament victory in Toronto

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Dommaraju Gukesh is only 17 years old.(Bild: X/KumariDiya)

The 17-year-old Indian Dommaraju Gukesh has won the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Toronto and thus earned himself a place in the final of the World Chess Championship. The "child prodigy" Gukesh prevailed against veterans such as Jan Nepomniashchi, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura and will become the youngest player in history to play for the world championship title against the Chinese Ding Liren later this year.

The conclusion of the three-week tournament on Sunday (local time) was thrilling: the US American Caruana was unable to close out a winning position against the Russian Nepomniashchi, the winner of the last two Candidates Tournaments. With a win, Caruana would have forced tiebreaks.

It has not yet been decided when and where Gukesh will play Ding Liren for the World Championship title. It is the first World Championship duel without European participation and the first between two Asians. Gukesh is clearly the youngest player to play for the World Championship. At 20 years and 11 months, Garry Kasparov was three years older than Gukesh at the moment when he won the Candidates Tournament 40 years ago (and went on to win the World Championship title). Although the Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomaryov won a World Championship in 2002 as an 18-year-old, the title was shared at the time and the strongest players - Vladimir Kramnik and Kasparov - did not take part.

"The game wouldn't let me go"
Gukesh found his way to chess via a World Championship: in 2013, when the Norwegian dominator Magnus Carlsen (who once again chose not to take part in the Candidates Tournament this year) won the title for the first time, it was played in Chennai, Gukesh's home town. "I visited the hall for one of the games. It was something huge. I had just started playing chess. After that, I couldn't let go of the game."