Raunak Sadhwani becomes India’s 65th Grandmaster

Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar

Nagpur City gets its first-ever Grandmaster!

Raunak Sadwani at a tender age of just 13 years 9 months and 28 days has achieved the coveted Grandmaster title to become Nagpur’s 1st and India’s 65th Grandmaster.

Raunak’s first GM norm came in the 2019 Aeroflot Open and the second in the 2019 Porticcio Open.

Raunak gained his third and final Grandmaster norm in style.

In the recently held Fide Grand Swiss Chess.com, Isle of Man 2019, for his final norm, Raunak faced all Grandmasters.He started  his campaign by upsetting Sanan Sjugirov (Russia, 2662) and drew with sixth seed Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2760), Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2658), Ivan Sarin (Croatia, 2667), Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine, 2663), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2670) and Gabriel Sargissian (Armenia, 2690) in succession. At the end of the tournament, he had gained 28 rating points and leapfrogged to the stipulated rating of 2500 which needed to become a Grandmaster.

Five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand congratulated the newly minted Grandmaster and welcomed him to the Grandmaster Club.

Raunak Sadwani is currently trained by GM Swapnil Dhopade.