Ding Liren becomes China's first male world chess champion

Category : Sports Published on: May 03 2023

Share on facebook

Ding Liren has become China's first men's world chess champion, after defeating Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Ding, 30, won a rapid-play tiebreaker after 14 first-stage games at the World Chess Championship in Kazakhstan.
Ding takes over as winner of the World Chess Championship from Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, who chose not to defend his title after a 10-year reign.
In 2009, he became China's youngest chess champion at national level.
Within 12 years, he had become the highest-ranked Chinese player in the world rankings, reaching second place.
Ding was undefeated in classical chess for 100 games from August 2017 to November 2018.
This was the longest unbeaten streak in top-level chess history until Carlsen surpassed it in 2019.
China has dominated women's chess tournaments since the 1990s, when Xie Jun became the first Chinese person to claim a world title in 1991 in the women's game.
No Chinese player had ever previously won the World Chess Championship, in which both men and women can compete.