Chess rankings: Erigaisi 4th, Gukesh 5th as nine Indians ranked in top-50 in Open section

Mumbai, Jan 1 (IANS) Arjun Erigaisi maintained his rating of 2801 and retained the fourth spot while newly-crowned World Classical World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju occupied the fifth position in the classical Open section in the first ranking list of 2025 released by International Chess Federation (FIDE) on Wednesday. 

Erigaisi, the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to cross the exalted 2800 rating in classical chess, has a rating of 2801 and is just one ELO behind American Hikaru Nakamura (2802). Another American Fabiano Caruana (2803) is a further one ELO ahead at No. 2 position in a hot chase for the second spot behind Magnus Carlsen, who leads the chart with a rating of 2831.

Gukesh, who defeated China's Ding Liren -- ranked 22nd with a rating of 2728 -- to win the World Championship title in Singapore a couple of weeks back, completes the top five with a rating of 2783.

Five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand is the third Indian in the top ten, placed 10th in the rankings with a rating of 2750.

Representing the healthy nature of Indian chess following the country's gold medal-winning performance in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, there are nine players from the country in the Top 50 with Praggnanandhaa at 13th with a rating of 2741, VR Aravindh Chithambaram (2726) at 23rd, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2721) at 24th spot followed by Pentala Harikrishna (2695) at 36th, Nihal Sarin (2687) at 41st and Raunak Sadhwani (2675) at 48th position.

Among the other Indians, Murali Karthikeyan (2651) is at 77th position followed by Leon Luke Mendonca (2639) at 95th, S.L Narayanan (2638) at 9th and Abhimanyu Puranik (2636) at the 100th position.

In the women's section, Chinese players occupy the top four places in the classical rankings, with former World Champion Hou Yifan occupying the top spot with a 2633 ELO rating followed by Ju Wenjun (2561) at second, Tan Zhongyi (2561) at third and Lei Tingjie (2552) at fourth.

India's Koneru Humpy is placed sixth with a rating of 2523 and is the lone Indian in the top 10 in women's rankings. Divya Deshmukh with a rating of 2490 is ranked 14th with Dronavalli Harika

(2489) is two spots behind at 16th.

Vaishali Rameshbabu, the third Indian woman to be awarded the Grandmaster title, is ranked 19th with a rating of 2476. Vantika Agrawal, a key member of the Indian team that won the women's gold medal in the 35th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, is ranked 39th with a rating of 2411. Tania Sachdev is 51st with a rating of 2396 followed by P.V. Nandhidhaa (2380) at 65th, Bhakti Kulkarni (2357) at 83rd, Padmini Rout (2356) at 85th and Velpula Sarayu (2347) at 95 completing the top-100.

In the junior men's section, World Champion Gukesh is ranked No.1 with Praggnanandhaa close behind in second position.

--IANS

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