Vidit Gujrathi qualifies for chess World Cup 2021
Chennai, Jun 3: India No.3 Vidit Gujrathi has qualified for the FIDE chess World Cup 2021, to be held in Sochi, Russia from July 10 on the basis of his rating.
With this, Grandmaster Gujrathi becomes the fourth Indian man to qualify for the upcoming World Cup, a press release said on Thursday.
The Nashik-based player joins Grandmasters P Harikrishna, Aravindh Chidambaram and P Iniyan as the Indian men to have qualified for the World Cup.
Meanwhile, Koneru Humpy, D Harika, Bhakti Kulkarni, R Vaishali and Padmini Rout have qualified for the women's event at the World Cup.
This will be Gujrathi's third World Cup appearance, having previously featured in 2017 and 2019. The Indian said he is confident of putting up a nice show in the tournament.
"Really happy to be a part of the WC squad. Playing for India is always a proud moment and especially the World Cup which is the most prestigious event across any sport," Gujrathi was quoted as saying.
"I am confident of putting up a nice show and will surely try to give my best in each and every game I play. Eagerly looking forward to the event as this is going to be my first Over the Board (OTB) event since February 2020," he added.
He is presently ranked 23rd in the World.
The FIDE World Cup 2021 will be a Classical event with standard time control.
Iniyan had recently won the AICF online qualifying event to book a berth in the World Cup.
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Champions Trophy opening on Feb 16 or 17; PCB hopeful Rohit Sharma will be there
Lahore, Jan 15 (PTI): The opening ceremony of the Champions Trophy will be held either on February 16 or 17 and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is confident that India captain Rohit Sharma will be in attendance at the event.
The PCB source also said that it is awaiting communication from the ICC on the schedule of the customary captains' photo-shoot and the pre-event press conference.
The eight-team tournament will get underway on February 19 in Karachi. However, India will play all their matches in Dubai, starting with the clash against Bangladesh on February 20, after refusing to travel to Pakistan owing to security concerns.
The source said PCB has procured all relevant clearances from its government to promptly issue visas to all captains, players and team officials who will come here for pre-tournament events.
"This obviously includes Rohit or any other Indian team player or official or board official," he added.
Another source confirmed to PTI that the PCB has made it clear to the ICC that the opening ceremony, featuring all teams and their captains, will take place in Pakistan.
"This is in line with the usual protocols and since the opening match is on 19th the opening ceremony can be expected either on the 16th or 17th," the source added.
He said the schedule of the opening ceremony would depend on the warm-up matches list.
The source said that recently three Indian nationals, who were a part of the ICC delegation which came to Pakistan, were promptly issued visas once the world body sent their names to the PCB.
