Chess
Tata Steel Chess Wijk aan Zee: Gukesh bounces back with a win after two straight losses
Gukesh defeated Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia in the 8th round with the black pieces.
Gukesh Dommaraju defeated Vladimir Fedoseev in round 8 of Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee 2026.(Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE)
World Champion GM Gukesh Dommaraju bounced back from two defeats with a win in round 8 of the 2026 Tata Steel Chess Wijk aan Zee on Sunday.
He defeated Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia with the black pieces, having a brilliant accuracy of 96.6 to attain a mate in 10 position before Vladimir resigned. He now jumped up to joint 6th place with 4/8 points.
Earlier, Gukesh had two consecutive defeats with Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan and then home favourite Anish Giri, after two rook blunders from the drawish positions.
Meanwhile, GM Praggnandhaa played his sixth consecutive draw of the tournament against Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus of Turkiye in his eighth round match-up.
The defending champion now has 3/8 points, currently in the last three position and is more or less out of the title race, with just 5 more rounds to go.
On the other hand, GM Arjun Erigaisi, having black pieces, played a draw against Aravindh Chithambaram in an all-Indian encounter in a completely exchanged game.
Having won just one point from the last four games, Arjun now dropped drastically to 11th position with just 3.5/8 points, while Aravindh stayed in the last place with 2.5/8 points.
Aravindh will next take on Pragg in an all-Indian round-9 match-up on Tuesday, while Gukesh and Arjun will take on Matthias Bluebaum (GER) and Hans Niemann (USA), respectively.