By Shaurya Dutt

Zagreb [Croatia], July 1 (ANI): Indian chess grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa has become the country's highest-ranked player after winning the UzChess Cup Masters in Croatia. However, the 19-year-old said he is not overly focused on the rating points and prefers to take one tournament at a time.

Praggnanandhaa defeated home favourite Nodirbek Abdusattorov with Black pieces on the final day of the tournament. With this win, his live rating rose to 2778.3, pushing him ahead of the reigning world champion D Gukesh (2776.6) and Arjun Erigaisi (2775.7).

Before this, Erigaisi had been the top-ranked Indian but dropped to sixth place after drawing his game with fellow Indian Aravindh Chithambaram. In the world rankings, Praggnanandhaa now holds the fourth spot. He is just behind Magnus Carlsen (2839.2), Hikaru Nakamura (2807.0), and Fabiano Caruana (2784.2), and ahead of Gukesh, who is ranked fifth.

Speaking to ANI about becoming India's top-ranked player, Praggnanandhaa said, 'I became India's number one because of one point. So I don't think it really matters. These one or two points can go either way in one game. I don't think I'll pay attention to that so much. For me, more than that, the tournament that I just won was much more special. I mean, like for me, I take a tournament at a time. I don't pay too much attention to the like these one or two rating points that change.'

Praggnanandhaa also received praise from World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura after being picked by Team Liquid for the upcoming Esports World Cup 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Reacting to their compliments, he said, 'It feels good, but I don't think it will impact me in any way. I'll try to do what I'm doing, but yeah, it's good to see such comments. It inspires me to do better and gives me confidence.'

He also acknowledged the support he has received from Adani Sportsline, a partnership that has helped him grow over the past year.

'I've been supported by Adani group from last one year. As chess players, we need to travel a lot and also train a lot, and these things can be pretty expensive because I trained for the Candidates last year. We needed to have a team and then have in-person camps. That's where Adani Group's support was invaluable. They were supporting me even when I was not playing well. They were there supporting me through my loss. Such support makes you push yourself harder. I'm genuinely grateful to Adani Group for their support. It's great to see such corporations coming into the game. It's overall a good thing for the game,' he concluded. (ANI)