Bengaluru: Within less than four months, India has celebrated the emergence of another world champion in chess. Grandmaster Pranav Venkatesh has claimed the title of world junior chess champion. He secured victory in the open category of the tournament held in Petrovac, Montenegro, achieving a score of 9 out of 11, needing only a draw in the final round.

The Under-20 event attracted nearly 230 participants from 44 nations, with the open section featuring 157 players, including 12 Grandmasters, from 63 countries. Pranav was the second-highest-rated competitor in the open category, following Belgian Grandmaster Daniel Dardha.

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who was the first Indian to win the world junior title in 1987 in Baguio, has mentored Pranav, who has been a student at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy. He follows in the footsteps of reigning world champion Gukesh D.

Other notable former world junior champions from India include Pentala Harikrishna and Abhijeet Gupta, with Gupta being the last Indian to secure the title in 2008.

Pranav, who became India’s 75th Grandmaster in 2022, achieved this by obtaining two of his three GM norms and surpassing the 2500-Elo rating within two months. He notably defeated world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the titled Tuesday online tournament in 2023 and was part of Carlsen’s Offerspill Chess Club team that triumphed in the European Chess Club Cup that same year.

In the previous year, he earned double gold medals at the World Youth Under-18 rapid and blitz championships, as well as winning the Challenger section of the Chennai Grand Masters, where he triumphed over D Harika, Vaishali R, and Murali Karthikeyan.

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