Magnus Carlsen has again stated that he is “unlikely” to defend his world title against the winner of the eight-player Candidates scheduled for Madrid in June and explained that he felt more comfortable in the years before 2013 when he was ranked No 1 but had not yet defeated India’s Vishy Anand in the world title match in Chennai. Since then Carlsen has won five championship matches – twice against Anand, and one each against Russia’s Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana of the US, and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Carlsen’s statement, made in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper VG, goes further than when he last spoke about the title following his crushing win over Nepomniachtchi in December. Then his stance was that he would only play a challenger from a younger generation, which pointed to 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja, formerly of Iran and now of France, who in 2021 became the youngest in chess history to achieve a 2800 rating, a recognised level for world champions and challengers.
