Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa climbed to the top of India’s chess rankings and achieved a career-best world No. 4 spot after winning the UzChess Cup Masters 2025 on Friday.
The 19-year-old’s victory pushed his live rating to 2778.3, allowing him to leapfrog both reigning world champion D Gukesh (2776.6) and Arjun Erigaisi (2775.7), who was India’s highest-rated player until Thursday but now sits at world No. 6. The global top three remains unchanged, with Magnus Carlsen (2839.2) leading, followed by Hikaru Nakamura (2807.0) and Fabiano Caruana (2784.2).
Praggnanandhaa began the final day trailing local favourite Nodirbek Abdusattorov by a full point and Javokhir Sindarov by half a point. A vital win over Abdusattorov in the final round helped him join both players on 5.5 points at the end of the round-robin stage. Arjun Erigaisi missed the chance to force a four-way tie after drawing his game against Aravindh Chithambaram.
In the first set of tiebreaks – a double round-robin blitz – all three players ended with two points. While Abdusattorov and Sindarov drew both their games, Praggnanandhaa defeated each with the white pieces but lost both with black.
In the second tiebreak phase, Praggnanandhaa drew with Abdusattorov (with white) and beat Sindarov (with black). Sindarov’s win over Abdusattorov in the final game sealed the title for the Indian prodigy.
This marks Praggnanandhaa’s third classical title of 2025, following earlier victories at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and the Grand Chess Tour Superbet Classic in Romania. He also finished runner-up at the Stepan Avagyan Memorial earlier this month.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand congratulated Praggnanandhaa on social media, writing: “Congrats to @rpraggnachess for winning the Uzbekistan Chess Cup. Third major classical victory this year. Of all his wins this year, this one seemed the least likely with just two rounds to go. However, he defeated Arjun Erigaisi and today in the crucial match defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov to tie for first place. In an impressive demonstration of character, he won his third tiebreak of the year as well. He is deservedly the new number four in the chess world and the highest rated player in India.”