FIDE Grand Swiss: Praggnanandhaa takes on Jeffery Xiong, Gukesh meets Bacrot in the opener

Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Sep 4 (PTI) Top seeded India No 1 R Praggnanandhaa will take on American Grandmaster Jeffery Xiong while reigning world champion D Gukesh is likely to come out all guns blazing against Frenchman Etienne Bacrot, in the first round of the FIDE Grand Swiss here.

As many as 116 players in the open and 56 in the women’s category will battle for a combined prize pool of USD 855,000, of which USD 625,000 are for the open section.

The strongest-ever Swiss open event will miss the top three ranked players in the world despite the tournament being a part of qualification for the next Candidates.

The absence of top ranked Magnus Carlsen, who has shown disliking towards the Classical chess and no longer plays in the world championship, is understandable.

Fabiano Caruana is missing this event to preserve his energies since he has already qualified for the Candidates, while the second ranked Hikaru Nakamura is banking on his rating average till January 2026 to find his place in the Candidates.

Interestingly, Nakamura played a very mediocre event in the USA and won all his games to increase his rating by five points.

There are two places up for grabs in both open and women’s section from the tournament.

Nevertheless, the decision to opt out by the trio has led to top three seeds being Indian players, something that has been unheard of in any open tournament in the world.

Praggnanandhaa, the world No 4, No 5 Arjun Erigaisi, and Gukesh, currently ranked sixth on the planet, are all there to fight for the top honours.

The most notable Indian in the open is women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, who has also qualified for the Women’s Candidates and has opted out of the women's section to compete with the best in business.

Divya, a fierce competitor, will start her campaign against compatriot Abhimanyu Puranik.

Defending champion Vidit Gujrathi, who won the last edition in 2023, seasoned P Harikrishna, the dynamic Nihal Sareen, an in-form Pranav Venkatesh and Leon Luke Mendonca have all got what it takes to win the big event as they will compete over 11 rounds.

There are 15 Indians in the open and three in the women's section.

In the eve’s section, the Indian challenge is spearheaded by D Harika. The last edition’s winner R Vaishali and Vantika Agrawal complete the line up from India as Koneru Humpy has also opted out for having qualified for the Women’s Candidate by reaching the finals of the women’s World Cup.

Indian pairings round 1 (open): Jeffery Xiong (USA) vs R Praggnanandhaa; Arjun Erigaisi vs Maksim Chigaev (ESP); Etienne Bacrot (FRA) vs D Gukesh; Vidit Gujrathi vs Alexander Donchenko (GER); P Harikrishna vs Anton Demchenko (SLO); Nihal Sarin vs Rasmus Svane (GER); Aryan Chopra vs Parham Maghsoodloo (IR); Luke Leon Mendonca vs Andrey Esipenko (FID); Aydin Suleymanli (AZE) vs Murali Karthikeyan; Radoslav Wojtaszek (POL) vs V Pranav; Raunak Sadhwani vs Jules Moussard (FRA); S L Narayanan vs Alexander Grischuk (FID); Rauf Mamedov (AZE) vs Aditya Mittal; Divya Deshmukh vs Abhimanyu Puranik.

Women: Yulia Osmak (UKR) vs Vantika Agrawal; Marcel Eforimski (ISR) vs D Harika; R Vaishali vs Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (UZB). PTI COR DDV