The Uzbek grandmaster has scored 3.5/4, including an impressive victory against the world No 3 and Candidates favourite, Fabiano Caruana
Javokhir Sindarov is already the clear favourite to win the 2026 Candidates in Cyprus and to challenge India’s Gukesh Dommaraju for the world crown after the Uzbek grandmaster, 21, began the tournament with a commanding 3.5/4, including an impressive victory against the pre-tournament favourite and world No 3, Fabiano Caruana. It is the fastest ever start by a player under the format of a double-round Candidates.
Sindarov’s seconds correctly anticipated that Caruana, with the black pieces, might open with the solid Queen’s Gambit Accepted, and prepared accordingly. “I got kind of caught in the opening,” said a subdued Caruana at the post-game press conference. The US champion got into heavy time pressure, and after 20 moves was down to 10 minutes to reach move 40, with no per-move increment.
“Of course I never imagined that I would go into the rest day with plus three, but today I played a really good game and the prep was also fantastic, thanks to my seconds,” said Sindarov, who added that he was particularly proud to achieve this success in preparation against the highly experienced Caruana and that he had been lucky to have revised this specific line of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted immediately before the game. The key white innovations were 13 dxc5! and 14 c6! while Caruana’s critical errors came at moves 17 and 18, when 17…Qxd4! and 18…Qxd4! should enable Black to survive.
