Is the World Cup a burden? Most people are lucky enough not to achieve this, says D Gukesh

The romanticized narrative of elite sport dictates that reaching the absolute pinnacle brings ultimate liberation. For D Gukesh, the reality of wearing the heaviest crown in chess was quite different. Since creating history to become the youngest undisputed world chess champion, the 20-year-old Indian maestro has been trapped in a punishingly complex slump.

The technical impact of this grueling phase was revealed at the recent Norwegian chess tournament in Oslo. There, a bruised Gukesh endured a disastrous campaign and finished bottom of the six-man field. He managed a single classic victory and suffered four painful defeats, including a losing in the final round to Magnus Carlsenwhich caused his live ranking to bleed heavily and dropped him out of the world top 10.

However, the modern chess calendar does not allow for a peaceful recovery. Gukesh is actively racing towards a monumental defense of the World Chess Champion title against Javokhir Sindarov, a brilliant 20-year-old Uzbek challenger who burst into the contenders’ tournament to set up an exciting clash of generations.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Gukesh opened up about the deep mental obstacles holding him back.

“Managing expectations,” revealed Gukesh, defining the steepest obstacle to his rule.

“As much as you try to shut yourself off from the outside world, you’re still aware that there’s this elephant in the room – expectations of you, and you also expect something of yourself. I’m generally an ambitious player and I’m still going for the wins. It’s been pretty tough because of those things, but well, it’s a challenge. Either I break away from it or it doesn’t look good.” Right now.

This excessive ambition was directly reflected in his results.

In Norwegian Chess, his typical objectivity of calculation was occasionally replaced by a desperate tendency to force complications, resulting in a humiliating tournament performance rating of just 2636.

LUCKY PEOPLE DON’T WIN A WORLD TITLE: GUKESH

For a prodigy who spent his entire adolescence single-mindedly chasing a singular prize, raising the top to 18 removed the primary engine that once powered his day job. Gukesh offered a remarkably candid piece of introspection about this existential trap, admitting that climbing a mountain so early creates a unique psychological vacuum.

“It is such a huge challenge for anyone to become a world champion that most people are lucky not to achieve it,” Gukesh said.

“They’re always pushing themselves. After it happens, you have to find something else to drive you, right? It’s a new phase. It’s not like I’m sitting on the couch, and that’s why my results are. I’m still putting in a lot of work. It’s very small things that I have to think about and I thought about them a lot. One of the times I remember was after the World cricket team1, 20. results in the next few years, when they did quite wrong.”

To break through this fog, Gukesh continues to work closely with mental fitness coach Paddy Upton. While the world champion acknowledges that the road back to his peak remains long, his framework remains fixed on long-term internal development over the immediate validation of the leaderboard.

“I always feel that the improvement comes before the results,” he explained. “If I truly believe that improvement is happening, then the results will catch up.”

Refusing to use his youth as a shield, Gukesh’s enduring armor against this string of frustrating results remains pure, unadulterated obsession with the 64 squares. Even when the board becomes hostile, its anchor is the simple, quiet joy of everyday discovery.

“It’s a challenge right now. I can’t say I’m quite there,” Gukesh stated.

“I just focus on having fun, I wake up every day and try to learn something new about chess because I just don’t know anything else I want to spend the day with. Even if I play badly and it’s frustrating, chess is still something I want to spend my time with.

“Doing something wrong for a long time, if you don’t love the game, there’s no reason to keep doing it. Just trying so hard means there’s something behind it all. Just connecting with that, I think, is why I want to keep going.”

When he sits down against Sindarov with global supremacy on the line later this year, the battle will be fiercely theoretical. But for Gukesh, the real championship will be won or lost in the quiet, complex spaces of his own mind.

– The end

Issued by:

Saurabh Kumar

Published on:

10 Jun 2026 08:41 IST