Gm bartel

World Champion Viswanathan Anand: The experienced Surya Shekhar Ganguly, GM Raunak Sadhwani, and GM Karthik Venkatraman scored comfortable victories, M. Pranesh played out a draw to advance to the second round, while IM Aronyak Ghosh defeated GM Mateusz Bartel of Poland to force a tie-breaker in the opening round of the FIDE World Cup 2025 here on Sunday.

The 42-year-old Ganguly, a former second of five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand, knew that his opponent, Ahmed Ahmadzada of Azerbaijan, had to take risks to draw level after losing the opening game. The Indian took control of the match by attacking from his opponent’s king side and forced him to resign after just 28 moves, and became the first Indian to advance to the second round, where he will face French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in another two-game matchup.

Karthik, who had drawn his opening game against GM Roberto Garia Pantoja on Saturday, forced his opponent to resign after 39 moves to set up a second-round clash with compatriot GM Aravindh Chithambaram VR.