R Praggnanandhaa becomes India's top-ranked player with UzChess Cup Masters win

R Praggnanandhaa reached a historic milestone on Friday, June 27 when he became the No.1 ranked Indian chess player in the live rankings. The 19-year-old achieved the feat by beating Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov with Black pieces in the final round of the UzChess Cup Masters.

With the win, Praggnanandhaa's live rating has jumped to 2778.3. This has made the Indian grandmaster No.4 on the rankings, the highest he has achieved in his career so far. The 19-year-old jumped three places to be in the No.4 spot at the moment ahead of his compatriot and World Champion D Gukesh, who has 2776.6 rating points.

Arjun Erigaisi, who had been India's highest-ranked player until Thursday, has slipped from third to sixth in the live rankings. Magnus Carlsen continues to lead the way in the rankings with 2839.2 rating points, followed by Hikaru Nakamura (2807.0) and Fabiano



Caruana (2784.2).

At the start of the day, Praggnanandhaa was a point behind leader Abdusattorov, and half a point behind Sindarov, who was in the second spot. Eventually, Sindarov drew to finish with 5.5 points in nine rounds. Praggnanandhaa secured the win to make it a three-way tie.

In the first round of tie-breaks, which was a double round-robin blitz tournament, all the players ended with two points out of four. In the second round, Praggnanandhaa defeated Sindarov, while Sindarov beat Abdusattorov, and there was a draw between Praggnanandhaa and Abdusattorov.

The new ranking for Praggnanandhaa is just another chapter in what has been a fantastic 2025. The Indian grandmaster defeated Gukesh earlier in the year in stunning fashion to claim the Tata Steel Masters 2025. He became the first Indian after Viswanathan Anand to win the title since 2006.