{"id":9693,"date":"2026-02-21T08:50:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=9693"},"modified":"2026-02-21T08:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:50:46","slug":"early-fireworks-anticipated-as-draw-for-candidates-is-finalised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/early-fireworks-anticipated-as-draw-for-candidates-is-finalised\/","title":{"rendered":"Early fireworks anticipated as draw for Candidates is finalised"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The opening round of the FIDE Candidates Tournament next month will feature several key clashes with the draw finalised yesterday in Cyprus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening matches will see an intriguing the all-American encounter between Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, a matchup with deep Candidates history, and the two rating favourites of the event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The matchup between the Indian duo of Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Anish Giri brings together two of the most theoretically prepared and solid players in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draw also sees Javokhir Sindarov and Andrey Esipenko squaring off, a match-up between two of the youngest participants in a direct generational contest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthias Bluebaum and Wei Yi complete the Round 1 lineup in a meeting between two players making their Candidates debut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The winner of the tournament will earn the right to play the World Chess Championship against the reigning World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With colors reversed, the same pairings will be repeated in Round 8, and the Berger tables schedule several decisive encounters late in the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The FIDE Women\u2019s Candidates draw will see three players from India, two from China, and two representing FIDE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first round will see Zhu Jiner facing former Women\u2019s World Champion Tan Zhongyi while Aleksandra Goryachkina meets long-time rival Kateryna Lagno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaishali Rameshbabu takes on Bibisara Assaubayeva in a matchup between two of the youngest players in the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The round is completed by the meeting between Humpy Koneru and Divya Deshmukh, pairing one of the most experienced players in the tournament with one of its newest participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The winner of the tournament will earn the right to play the Women’s World Chess Championship against the reigning Women’s World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opening round of the FIDE Candidates Tournament next month will feature several key clashes with the draw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-9693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-chess"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw.jpg",1202,672,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-300x168.jpg",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-768x429.jpg",640,358,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-1024x572.jpg",640,358,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw.jpg",1202,672,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw.jpg",1202,672,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Candidates-mens-Draw.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9697,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9693\/revisions\/9697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}