FIDE World Cup: India’s hope rests on Arjun Erigaisi

Panaji: India's prospects for the FIDE World Cup 2025 will be exclusively dependent on second seed GM Arjun Erigaisi, after GM P Harikrishna was eliminated in the fifth round tiebreak against GM Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara here on Sunday.

While Arjun defeated two-time champion GM Levon Aronian 1.5:0.5 in the two classical games, Harikrishna needed to win the tiebreak versus Martinez after drawing both.

The first two Rapid Games, which had 15-minute time control, also ended with a draw.

In the next set of Rapid games with 10-minute time control, Harikrishna pushed for a win with white and banked on his preparation to add almost a minute to his clock after 14 moves. But Martinez was ready with his counter and slowly but surely took control of the situation after the Indian traded the queens and Martinez won the game in a rook-pawn endgame after 59 moves, IANS reported.

Harikrishna faced a must-win situation with black in the second game but could only manage a draw and was knocked out of the competition in 30 moves.

In the other tiebreaks, GM Sam Shankland defeated former world rapid champion GM Daniil Dubov in the first tiebreak rapid games while GM Andrey Esipenko won with white and then drew with black against GM Aleksey Grebnev to advance to the quarterfinals. The final quarterfinal spot was claimed by Germany’s GM Alexander Donchenko, who overcame Vietnam’s GM Le Quang Liem.

In the quarterfinals on Monday, Arjun will play Chinese GM Wei Yi, Shankland meets Esipenko and Martinez will face GM Javokhir Sindarov.