CHENNAI: After D Gukesh suffered a bump in the road with the seventh-round defeat to Alireza Firouzja in the Candidates tournament in Toronto, the Indian GM looked at his first and only loss as a blessing in disguise.
With the defeat to the Frenchman coming just a day before the second rest day, Gukesh picked himself up, but not before a period of lull. Just when he needed it the most, his mother Padma, a microbiologist, provided "emotional support" from afar – Chennai – with a brief phone conversation that proved to be the mood-changer.
