Firouzja ends Sasikiran’s unbeaten run, takes lead
The Hindu
With three rounds to go, Firouzja leads at 6.5, one point ahead of a 10-man pack
Alireza Firouzja stepped up the pace towards a Candidates berth after inflicting a 43-move defeat on a previously-unbeaten K. Sasikiran in the eighth round of the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss chess tournament at Riga, Latvia, on Thursday.
With three rounds to go, Firouzja leads at 6.5, one point ahead of a 10-man pack.
The victory over Sasikiran also made him World No. 4 on the live rating list. Top two finishers from this competition will qualify for next year’s Candidates tournament.
The other men’s semifinal Friday is Norway’s Casper Ruud, twice the runner-up in Paris — to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and to Novak Djokovic in 2023 — against Germany’s Alexander Zverev, a finalist at the 2020 U.S. Open, an Olympic gold medalist and into the final four at Roland Garros for the fourth consecutive year.