RAJABOV SLAMS THE DOOR

Intense struggle, beautiful games, dozens of losers and only one winner. The main trophy of the World Chess Cup that recently ended in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk went to Azerbaijani grandmaster Teymur Rajabov.

Azerbaijan was represented by five chess players but the country expected the greatest achievements from the team leaders Shahriyar Mamedyarov and Teymur Rajabov. Moreover, the chances of Shahriyar were higher. Radjabov's path to the top was very interesting from the very beginning of the competition. For the first time in history, two leaders of Azerbaijani chess came face to face at the World Cup. It was a match of two equals, friends but competing grandmasters. The main games ended in a draw, and on a tiebreak, Rajabov was luckier.

In the quarterfinals, Teymur knocked out the US representative Jeffrey Shong, who has been rapidly rising in recent years in the ranking table and had previously defeated Russian grandmaster Sergei Karjakin and Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda. In the semifinals, Rajabov did not leave any chance to Maxim Vachier-Lagrave from France preventing him from leaving the debut.

In the final, Teymur met with Chinese GM Ding Liren, who ranks the third in the world ranking. After four days of intense struggle, the rivals came to a tiebreak with a draw, having played two games in a draw and exchanged victories in the other two (2:2). The fate of the title was decided in the blitz, where the Azerbaijani grandmaster was more successful than his Chinese opponent (6:4).

As a result, Teymur Rajabov marked the history of chess as the first Azerbaijani to win the World Cup. The victory in Khanty-Mansiysk also gives him the right to speak in the tournament of Candidates for the world chess crown, which will be held in the spring of 2020 in Yekaterinburg.

“Honestly, I don’t know how to evaluate my performance at the tournament. It’s not bad in general (laughs). I'm glad I played quite aggressively. During one of the games I wanted to slam the door of the tournament,” Teymur commented on his victory in the World Cup.

He noted that he had not prepared physically for the tournament. "There is a rule of life - when you don’t really want something, you will get it. It works, I always knew about it, but I didn’t know that would happen to me," Rajabov said comparing his victory at the World Cup with the victory over Kasparov in Linares, as a teenager.

Thus, Radjabov's victory at the World Cup was a message to those who considered his era in big chess over.

For the first time, Teymur played chess at the age of three. At 14, he became the youngest international grandmaster in the world. At that time, it was considered an unattainable dream. At 16, Teymur defeated the world champion Garry Kasparov at the super tournament in Leipzig. This meeting between two phenomenal chess players was marked by the organizers as the Best Game of the super tournament. As a result, Teymur became the youngest chess player to beat the world champion. Playing with black pieces, Rajabov, like at the World Cup, won victories over world champions Garry Kasparov, Vishvinatan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariev, and Veselin Topalov.

As part of the Azerbaijani team, he became the European champion three times. However, due to the drop in the rating after a series of draws in recent years, Rajabov rarely received invitations to super tournaments.

Teymur himself refused to play in commercial tournaments, preferring to play for the Azerbaijani team.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva sent congratulations to Teymur Rajabov on the historic victory at the World Cup. "As our first chess player to win the World Cup, you have opened a glorious page in the history of Azerbaijani sports," President said wishing the grandmaster new success.