Looking forward to playing again: Viswanathan Anand
The Hindu
Former World champion returns to over-the-board chess with Croatian Grand Tour
The enthusiasm was palpable in Viswanathan Anand’s voice as he spoke from Croatia about his return to competitive chess after a gap of more than a year. He is set to make his moves at the Croatian Grand Chess Tour, which opens at Zagreb on July 7. “I am really happy to be able to play again,” Anand told The Hindu on Saturday. “Only when I enter the tournament hall, see the stage, the board, the pieces, the arbiters and all that will it feel like how it used to be. But I am looking forward to the experience.” The five-time World champion said it felt nice to be travelling again.He has worn India’s blues, albeit in an Under-19 World Cup, with K.L. Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat as his teammates. He has proudly adorned the Lion’s Crest — the famed Mumbai cricket logo — in all three formats. He has played with Yuvraj Singh, against Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid and has the likes of Rahul and Joe Root in his illustrious list of dismissals. He is also a software developer for an IT giant, based in California. Virtually every middle-class Indian over the last three decades at some stage dreams of being either a cricketer or an IT professional. Saurabh Netravalkar has been combining two dreams, even after relocating to USA to pursue academics at the prestigious Cornell University in 2015.
Unlike most of the Olympic-bound athletes, who opt to train abroad before the big event, boxer Amit Panghal prefers training in home conditions prior to Paris 2024. A former World championships silver medallist and a World No. 1, Panghal won the 51kg quota place in the only chance he got. He wants to follow his own plans to script success in Paris.
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.