D. Gukesh took the sole lead after beating Alireza Firouzja of France in the penultimate round of the FIDE Candidates chess tournament at Toronto on Saturday. The 17-year-old from Chennai had 8.5 points going into the final round.
He was closely followed half-a-point behind by three players. Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the last two editions of the tournament, and the two top -seeded Americans Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura were all on eight points.
Caruana joined the leaders after scoring a win with black pieces against R. Praggnanandhaa. Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura paired with each other and played out a draw.
