As R Praggnanandhaa prepares to face No. 1 ranked Magnus Carlsen in the World Cup final, Indian chess fans are delighted.

To advance to the finals, Praggnanandhaa defeated World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana in a tie-breaker on Monday.

After defeating Nijat Abasov over the weekend, Carlsen reached the final.

Carlsen, 32, will play in his first World Cup final at the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, will host the final match on Tuesday.

The youngest player in the World Cup final is Praggnanandhaa, who turned 18 earlier this month.

She is also the third-youngest person to qualify for the Candidates Tournament, which will determine the challenger for the title of world champion next year. Carlsen and Bobby Fischer qualified for the tournament when they were 16 years old.

An Indian teenager who defeated a world champion in chess is Praggnanandhaa – commonly known as Pragg.

In the history of the game, he became the youngest International Master at the age of 10. He became the world’s second-youngest grandmaster two years later, in 2018.

The Indian grandmaster became only the third Indian to defeat Carlsen at the Airthings Masters last year.

In addition, he is the first Indian since Vishwanathan Anand to reach the FIDE World Cup final.

Anand posted “What a performance!” on X following Praggnanandhaa’s victory on Tuesday.

Former World champions Susan Polgar and Garry Kasparov also congratulated the teenager on social media.

Upon winning on Monday, Praggnanandhaa said he hadn’t expected to play Carlsen in the tournament since “I didn’t expect to play him in the final”.

He said, “I’ll just do my best and see what happens.”.

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