Leon Mendonca (photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament) New Delhi: At the beginning of this year, Wijk Aan Zee was full of hope 19 -year -old grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonco to be crushed by exhaustion, because his eagerly awaited debut Tata Steel became an exhausting endurance test.Mendonca entered last year’s Challengeras champion and hoped to start 2025 with a bang. But just as he wanted to attack the world elite, she hit the disease.“I was just exhausted, you know, tired, everything,” says Leon in an exclusive interview of Timesofindia.com. “I would probably sleep like 13 hours a day and had no energy to prepare. All my thinking during the game was supposed to return to the room.”The results inevitably suffered when he finished second, starting on a low note year.
Leon Mendonca during the Challengers 2 round. Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters round
After nine months, Leon was appointed an official reserve for the Fide 2025 World Cup in Goa. If one of the nominated President Fide is withdrawn before the couples are notified, Leon will enter.For Goan GM, this is both the second chance and the recognition of its perseverance.
Sibling rivalry: random encounter with chess
Leon’s journey with chess began with internal rivalry. “My sister, who is three years older, began to learn chess from the local couple near our house. She was like six or seven years. And at that moment I was about 4 years old,” he recalls.“I just looked at what she would do most of the time. I generally like to beat her in anything she tried, so I started chess.”
Leon Mendonca during the Challengers Round 6 of the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters
What began as a sibling rivalry soon turned into serious persecution.But Goa had no real chess culture.“At that time it was absolutely nothing. None of my family members played chess and the coaches could only get you to a certain level,” Leon adds. But talent spoke soon. At just eight years he won a bronze medal at the World Youth Championship in Durban. It all changed.The family supports Leon’s braveryThe medal in Durban forced the family to make a hard decision. “If we really wanted to take it further, we had to take place,” Leon admits.His father left his job to travel with him in India and abroad, while his mother, a doctor at the Goa Medical College, kept the family stable on the financial front.
Leon Luke Mendonco during Challengers 8. Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters rounds
“This is not a trivial decision at all. It requires a lot of foreshadowing, planning and there is no guarantee that something will happen,” shares a teenager.From Nagpur to Bopal and then to Chennai, Leon was looking for stronger training.GM RB Ramesh led him his teenage years. Later, under GM Vishnu Prasanna, Leon found something else.“He encouraged me to ask a lot of questions – why do I do it, what is it all? It was a philosophical approach, not only about the results. It slowly sank and it changed my thinking,” adds Grand Master.Only the second GM out of Goa stateLeon’s escaping year came in 2024 when Tata Steel Challengers won and earned a place in Masters this year.“That was probably one of my most important victories,” he says. “It gave me a chance to play a great tournament with the best world.”
Leon Mendonca & Pa Iniyan during Challengers 8. Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters rounds
However, chess is unforgivable. The disease in Wijk launched the gross first half of 2025.“Either the tournaments went on average or not very well. I realized that something was preventing me to go to the next level. Around June I worked on identifying patterns in my losses. Now it’s about how to put it into practice,” he reveals.The brands are encouraging. Leon completed the second second in Chennai Grandmasters Challenger and picked up the form in the recently closed Fide Grand Swiss, where he finished with 5/11 points.For a boy who once described himself in his sister’s classes, Leon got far, driven by parental victims and will to bounce off the failures.The Reserve of the World Cup is another milestone in its tireless search for chess glory. For Leon, this will be a long way to achieve this dream. However, Goan Teenager certainly knows the importance of patience, perseverance and failure, and he is really just outside the blocks.
