It’s India vs Uzbekistan – the new rivalry in chess. Two years after becoming the youngest ever chess world champion, beating Ding Liren in Singapore, India’s D Gukesh will up to defend his crown against Uzbekistan GM Javokhir Sindarov in Geneva, Switzerland, in November.
The clash has its own significance as for the first time in history, two 20-year-olds are fighting for the biggest prize in the sport. While is coming after a team silver medal at the Chess Olympiad 2026, Sindarov has won the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown in Saint Louis, overturning a 2.5-point deficit on the final day.
It was Sindarov’s final showdown before facing Gukesh in Geneva. Sindarov earned the opportunity to challenge for the world title, after winning the Candidates Tournament 2026 in Cyprus, with a round to spare, thus adding another feather in his cap post 2025 win.
Born in Tashkent, Sindarov comes from a well to-do family in Uzbekistan where his father is a businessman and mother is a school teacher. Sindarov’s love for chess was initiated by his grandfather Komil Sindarov, who taught introduced his grandson with the game as early as four and half years old. In fact, Komil is the vice president of Chess Federation of Uzbekistan and has also written several detective novels.
A chess prodigy, Sindarov became a grandmaster in 2018 when he was just 12 years, 10 months, and 8 days old. He was the second-youngest grandmaster in chess history at the time and gradually turned extraordinary junior promise into elite results.
He was also the member of the Uzbekistan teams that won gold at the 44th Chess Olympiad and the 46th Chess Olympiad. His breakthrough came at the 2025 FIDE World Cup, which he won, before his blistering unbeaten show at the Candidates in Cyprus, scoring 10/14 with six wins and eight draws. But that isn’t the end.
Currently, Sindarov leads the 2026–27 FIDE Circuit, which means that even before his first World Championship match, the Uzbek teen is building another potential route into the next Candidates Tournament.
In 2026, Sindarov played four major classical tournaments so far, registering 14 wins, 29 draws and just two defeats in 45 games.
Both these players know each other since their junior days. Sindarov holds the edge over Gukesh in classical encounters, with one win and two draws in the three recorded meetings identified by ChessTV.
The last time Gukesh met Sindarov was during the Tata Steel Chess tournament in January, which ended in a draw. In faster chess, Gukesh defeated Sindarov during the Grand Chess Tour rapid event in Warsaw earlier this year. Meanwhile, if either player withdraws, GM Anish Giri is first in line to enter the match. If a second replacement is required, GM Fabiano Caruana is next.
