First Gukesh and now Pranav Venkatesh: Anand lauds World Junior Champ as 2nd student makes history in less than 3 months

Indian GM Pranav Venkatesh scripted history on Friday, winning the World Junior Chess Championship (U-20) in Petrovac, Montenegro. Venkatesh drew against Slovenia’s Matic Levrencic in the final round (11th) to clinch the title, and he also maintained his unbeaten run through the tournament.

Venkatesh bagged seven wins and four draws to finish with nine points out of a possible 11, and it was confirmed ahead of the final round that a draw would confirm his title success.

Also Read: Long way to go before comparison with Carlsen: Gukesh

Pranav Venkatesh: Trained by Viswanathan Anand

Venkatesh is a known figure in the Indian chess community and has been heralded as one of the upcoming stars. He was selected by the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy, where he was mentored by Viswanathan Anand.

The 18-year-old’s win sent social media into a state of frenzy as fans rushed to congratulate him. Anand also joined the bandwagon on X, formerly known as Twitter, and hailed the young GM.

He wrote, “Congratulations to the World Junior Champion Pranav Venkatesh.He has been in great form lately. Our @WacaChess mentee. He is very meticulous in his work and constantly analyses his own games , comes back with suggestions and takes feedback. You join a very prestigious line of World Junior Champions!”

“Congratulations to his parents and @WacaChess coach Shyamsundar for being a big part of this achievement”, he added.

Anand was introduced to the international stage when he won the World Junior C’ship in 1987. Meanwhile, the other Indians to have won it are Pentala Harikrishna in 2004 ad Abhijeet Gupta in 2008.

Venkatesh started playing chess when he was six-years-old, and got his first GM norms in 2021 and 2022. He bagged his final norm in August 2022, becoming Indias 75th Grandmaster and the 27th from Tamil Nadu.

Indian chess has been experiencing plenty of highs lately, with D Gukesh winning the World Championship in December last year. Gukesh is also part of WACA, and has been mentored by Anand. Meanwhile, Koneru Humpy also clinched the World Rapid C’ship in the same month. Also the likes of Vaishali Rameshbabu, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Aravind Chitamabaram are dominating chess tournaments in recent times.