Grandmaster Richard Rapport, who was Ding Liren’s second on the chess World Championship, has stated that the Chinese language Grandmaster performed higher high quality of chess than his opponent, D Gukesh, through the 14-game title match.
Talking to Chinese language Chess Affiliation’s social media channel, the Hungarian stated: “I feel he performed general higher chess than the opponent (Gukesh). It’s painful from him to lose final sport this fashion. I can solely think about how he feels”.
Forward of the ultimate sport, the scores had been tied at 6.5 every with each gamers profitable two video games every. Sport 14 was headed for a simple draw with tie-breaks looming earlier than Ding, who was taking part in with white items, made a deadly error within the endgame that noticed 18-year-old Gukesh change into the youngest-ever world chess champion. Thoughts you, Ding was rated because the favorite had the match gone into the shorter-format tiebreaks.
Ideas by @rjrapport on the #DingGukesh match:
“After all it’s very painful to lose the final sport this fashion. I can solely think about how [Ding] feels…I’m very completely happy he gave me the belief.” pic.twitter.com/xgYpqlNMNU
— Mike Klein (@ChessMike) December 14, 2024
“I’m happy with him and the best way he performed. He had two wins which is troublesome to attain (on the World Championships). These two wins had been at a really excessive degree, fully outplaying the opponent in each video games.
“Specialists had been skeptical primarily based on his performances (within the lead-up to the occasion). We (his crew) managed to place him in fine condition the place he had many good combating possibilities until the very finish,” Rapport, who was Ding’s second on the 2023 World Championship too, stated.
After profitable the title in 2023 towards Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding struggled to cope with the strain of being a world champion. His performances all year long had dropped and within the classical format, Gukesh was picked because the favorite. Ding, nonetheless, confirmed nice character to struggle again towards Gukesh, even when the chips had been down. After shedding Sport 11, excerpts had written him off, however he got here again with a surreal efficiency to win the subsequent sport in commanding trend.
“It’s a little bit of blended feeling. He performed higher than he performed within the earlier match. The standard was higher this time, however the end result was worse,” Rapport stated.
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