Russia’s Sergey Karjakin has won the chess World Cup, beating compatriot Peter Svidler 6-4, in the final match. Karjakin and Svidler thus joined five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and American duo of Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura in the line-up for the Candidates tournament to decide the challenger for Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the next world championship. Three more slots remain to be filled for the eight-player tournament.

The World Cup had six Indians and only SP Sethuraman had lasted till the third round under the knock-out format that started with 128 players. Sethuraman caused a major upset in round two defeating highest rated Indian P Harikrishna.

Who is Sergey Karjakin?

• Sergey Karjakin is a Ukrainian-born Russian chess grandmaster. He was a chess prodigy and holds the record for the world’s youngest Grandmaster, at the age of 12 years and 7 months.
• Karjakin won the 2012 World Rapid Chess Championship and the Chess World Cup 2015. He also won the Norway Chess Tournament twice (2013, 2014) and the Corus Chess Tournament in 2009.