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Javokhir Sindarov Becomes Youngest Ever World Cup Winner

Javokhir Sindarov Becomes Youngest Ever World Cup Winner

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Colin_McGourty
| 67 | Chess Event Coverage

Nineteen-year-old Uzbek GM Javokhir Sindarov has won the 2025 FIDE World Cup and the $120,000 top prize after beating GM Wei Yi 1.5-0.5 in tiebreaks. Sindarov missed a one-move chance to win with White in the first tiebreak game, but he made no mistake with Black in the second. Wei rejected a draw offer and had a promising position near the end, but making moves with a second on his clock ultimately saw him slip into a lost position.

2025 FIDE World Cup Bracket

The World Cup bracket is complete, with Sindarov the last of 206 players left standing. He takes the trophy and $120,000, while Wei takes second place and $85,000. A day earlier, GM Andrey Esipenko won the third-place match and a spot in the FIDE Candidates Tournament, earning $60,000 compared to GM Nodirbek Yakubboev's $50,000.

Games, results, and bracket.

Sindarov 2.5-1.5 Wei Yi (1.5-0.5 in tiebreaks)

Immediately after the match was over, Sindarov told WIM Charlize van Zyl, "I understood when I finished my game against Yakubboev I'm very tired and I cannot prepare!" That wasn't the whole story, however. Sindarov revealed he'd been prepared 20 moves deep in the first classical game against Wei, only to find his opponent "knew everything," while for the tiebreaks, he had a strategy: "Today my plan was going to 5+3, and I also prepared for 5+3 some tricky lines!"

Charlize interviews Sindarov in front of the World Cup trophy. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

But in the end, only two 15-minute games were needed to decide the fate of the World Cup final. In the first, Sindarov had a new idea of pushing his a-pawn in a Queen's Gambit Declined, but Wei responded sharply and well with e5, d4, and a5 breaks. One last pawn break, however, 30...g5?, could have been punished.

Sindarov understood this was the critical moment and spent three minutes and 20 seconds on his reply. In the end, however, he opted for 31.h5?, when he needed to go for 31.Be4! first. It's very far from trivial, but the pawn endgames are all winning for White. Instead, in the game, Wei was able to follow a narrow path to a draw.

Ideally, you don't want to learn about a miss like that until after the match is over, but Sindarov found out during the break before the second game: "After the game I saw it, and I was very sad before the [next] game!" 

Wei Yi had escaped in the first game, but would fall in the second. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

The sadness didn't last long, however, with Sindarov very happy with how the second game began. He commented, "In the second game I got a very good position with very good time management also." In a slow-maneuvering Italian, he built up a six-minute lead on the clock and threatened to take over. It wasn't easy, however, and Sindarov described Wei's position as "too solid," so that he decided to offer a draw and take the match to quicker time controls.

Wei rejected it, however, and when he finally got to play his long-term goal of 46.f4! it felt like his decision might be rewarded.

Wei was down to 23 seconds, but Sindarov was also under 30 seconds, so that anything could happen. Things escalated fast, as six moves later Wei missed a chance to give a queen check on g6—when only White was likely to have winning chances—and pushed his g-pawn, allowing the black rooks to infiltrate White's position. He did that with one second on his clock, and the final straw was another move played with a second to spare, 57.Rxd4?.

57.Kg2! was holding, though White would need to meet 57...Qh4 with the incredible saving resource 58.Rf8+!!, sacrificing a rook so the queen can give perpetual check.

Instead, in the game, there was no defense against the black queen invading, and after 27 games unbeaten, Wei finally had to resign the game and the World Cup final.

That's our Game of the Day, which GM Dejan Bojkov analyzes below.


Sindarov showed relief after winning it all. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Nineteen-year-old Sindarov had done what the then-18-year-old GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu failed to do against GM Magnus Carlsen in 2023—win the final to become the youngest ever World Cup champion.

It's quite a time for chess teenagers, with World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and now both Open and Women's World Cup winners being 19.

Sindarov is hoping this is just the start: "It's one of the best days of my life, but I hope my career will be better and better after this tournament!"

It's one of the best days of my life, but I hope my career will be better and better after this tournament!

—Javokhir Sindarov

He'll now get a chance to qualify for a match against Gukesh when he plays the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament, but for now, it's simply time to celebrate and get some rest after a month-long event.

And while it was disappointing for Wei, whose one loss came at the wrong moment, the Chinese star has the consolation of having qualified for the Candidates for the first time, as well as taking home $85,000 as the runner-up. 

The end of the road for Wei Yi, but so much had gone right for him in Goa that he could have few regrets. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

How to review?
You could watch the event on Chess.com/TV. You can also enjoy the show on Chess24, on Twitch, or YouTube. Games from the event can be viewed on our events page.

The live broadcast was hosted by GMs Judit Polgar and David Howell, and IM Anna Rudolf.

The 2025 FIDE World Cup, which took place from November 1 to 26 in Goa, India, determined three spots in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. It was a 206-player single-elimination knockout tournament with eight rounds. Each match consisted of two classical games followed by rapid and blitz tiebreaks if needed. The prize fund was $2 million.

Previous coverage:

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Colin McGourty

Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.

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