Today, Abu Dhabi took place a draw for the chess tournament of applicants for the championship crown.
The competition will be held in Madrid from June 17 to July 7 this year. Azerbaijani Grossmaster Teimur Radzhabov will take part in it. In today’s draw, Rajabov and Azerbaijan represented the Vice President of FIDE, President of the Chess Federation of Azerbaijan Mahir Mamedov.
As a result, Teimur received the 4th number. In the 1st round, he will play white with Aliraza Firuj (France). Fabiano Caruan (USA), Richard Rapport (Hungary), Jan Nepomnya (Russia), Yan-Kshishtof Duda (Poland), Hikaru Nakamura (USA) and, most likely, Dinh Lizhen (China), will also perform. He will replace the disqualified Russian grandmaster Sergei Karyakin, who was punished for his statements about the war in Ukraine.
The winner of the applicants’ tournament next year should play the match for the title of world champion with Magnus Karlsen. True, the Norwegian did not rule out that he could refuse the match due to loss of motivation.
Teimur Rajabov was admitted to the tournament without selection, at a special invitation of FIDE. Recall that Rajabov was selected in the 2020 applicants, thanks to the victory at the 2019 World Cup. However, due to the announced pandemic, Teimur refused to participate in the competition, which was supposed to begin in Yekaterinburg on March 17, and called on Fide to postpone the tournament. The Azerbaijani Grassmaster turned out to be the only one who did not want to play. FIDE did not go to transfer. As a result, Rajabov was replaced by the French chess player Maxim Vashe-Lagv. The tournament started, but it was not possible to finish it in 2020. 7 rounds were played, that is, the first half of the competition, after which it was suspended, since the Russian government closed international air traffic and there were fears that chess players would simply not be able to fly to their countries. Rajabov was right, offering to hold a competition later. Given this, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich made the initiative to provide Teimur with the so -called “Wild -Card” – a special invitation.