US Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura congratulated Gukesh on Thursday for becoming the youngest world champion but said Ding Liren may be facing some problems.
“I thought Gukesh was clearly the favorite in this match. He showed some ups and downs in this game. But at the end of the day he got the job done,” Nakamura said on his YouTube channel.
Talking about Ding, Nakamura said that the Chinese grandmaster is not the player he was 5 years ago.
“I think on some level the fans are a little disappointed with the mistakes Ding made in this game. There’s one thing that’s abundantly clear about this game that we can be very critical of a lot of the mistakes Ding made. But it’s also clear that even five years ago Ding Not the same player. Of course there are issues he’s facing. Who knows what he says or doesn’t say but it’s very clear,” he said.
He is clearly struggling a lot. He could not play up to the level he played. But you know, it’s definitely sad to see and I think we should commend him for trying his best all things considered. There are a lot of players who don’t make those mistakes but at the end of the day he earned his right to be there and he did the best he could and maybe it was the pressure. Whatever it is. It was too much for him,” he added.
The die was cast on the 55th move of the 14th match of the World Championship. Liren, letting go of his sense of danger, went for the rock trade and Gukesh quickly pawed him. He knew it was his title to lose and it took three more moves before the Chinese called it a day.
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