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Shankland, Esipenko, Martinez, Donchenko Reach World Cup Quarterfinals
Sam Shankland ended Daniil Dubov's World Cup run. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

Shankland, Esipenko, Martinez, Donchenko Reach World Cup Quarterfinals

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Colin_McGourty
| 62 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Sam Shankland won a brilliant first game and ended the 2025 FIDE World Cup run of GM Daniil Dubov 2-0 in tiebreaks to reach the Quarterfinals. GM Andrey Esipenko also needed only two tiebreak games to overcome GM Alexey Grebnev, while GM Jose Martinez knocked out former world top-10 GM Pentala Harikrishna in four games. The longest match of the day featured four wins for Black before 61st-seed GM Alexander Donchenko finally beat 13th-seed GM Liem Le with White to clinch the match.   

The first game of the Quarterfinals is on Monday, November 17, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET / 10:30 CET / 3 p.m. IST.

Round 5 Results

Four matches were decided in classical chess, with the four remaining matches going to tiebreaks.

Fed Player 1 Rating - Fed Player 2 Rating G1 G2 TB
Javokhir SINDAROV (16) 2721 - Frederik Svane (64) 2640 1-0 ½-½
Jose MARTINEZ (57) 2644 - Pentala Harikrishna (24) 2690 ½-½ ½-½ 2.5-1.5
Gabriel Sargissian (76) 2616 - Nodirbek YAKUBBOEV (28) 2689 ½-½ 0-1
Alexander DONCHENKO (61) 2641 - Liem Le (13) 2729 ½-½ ½-½ 3.5-2.5
Sam SHANKLAND (46) 2649 - Daniil Dubov (30) 2674 ½-½ ½-½ 2-0
Andrey ESIPENKO (27) 2681 - Aleksey Grebnev (86) 2617 ½-½ ½-½ 1.5-0.5
Samuel Sevian (23) 2701 - WEI Yi (7) 2753 ½-½ 0-1
ARJUN Erigaisi (2) 2769 - Levon Aronian (15) 2728 ½-½ 1-0

Games, Results, and Bracket.

The lineup for the Quarterfinals is complete, with the games beginning Monday.

Bracket

15-Minute Games: Shankland Advances To Play Esipenko

Two matches were over after the first two 15+10 games, with the most notable result also the smoothest of the day—Shankland's 2-0 victory over 2018 World Rapid Champion Dubov.

Shankland ended the debates over Dubov's draw-heavy approach to knockouts. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

Shankland shared his thoughts with Chess.com's IM Rakesh Kulkarni after beating not only Dubov, but also GMs Vidit Gujrathi and Richard Rapport in tiebreaks:

This was actually a surprise for me! I’m not generally a great rapid player. In classical, I know my rating’s dropped a lot but perhaps I’m foolish and naive enough to believe I’m still 2700+ strength if I’m on form and feeling OK, because I’ve had some health issues. Maybe that’s just too naive and arrogant, but that’s sort of how I feel. Rapid I was never really that competitive and I got last at the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz. 

Dubov had stuck to his strategy of not pushing with White in the classical game, and this time it was punished, as Shankland came prepared with a fine novelty, got a great position out of the opening, and then finished in style when he got the chance.

Shankland's first rapid win over Dubov is our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.

Dubov then needed to play for a win on demand for the first time in the tournament, but he got nothing and ended up losing, though as Shankland commented, "2-0’s a little bit misleading, because game two was a dead, dead, dead draw every which way, and he just forced a suicide to hope something will happen."

When asked about being the last U.S. player standing, Shankland pointed out it was the same as when he reached the Quarterfinals in 2021. Back then he took the lead in classical, and then in rapid, against GM Sergey Karjakin, but was hit by a comeback both times before going on to lose what he considered the most important match of his career. He told WIM Charlize van Zyl:

I’ve lost so many games in my life—that’s part of being a top athlete. I will forget every single one except for the 2021 Quarterfinals. I will take that match to my grave, and this is my chance to exorcize some demons!

Shankland's opponent in the Quarterfinals will be Esipenko, who credited his second GM David Paravyan for coming up with the idea that finally rocked 19-year-old Grebnev's Petroff Defense in the first rapid game. Curiously there was also an h4-novelty as in the Shankland game, with Esipenko following up with h5 and bringing a rook to h3. Soon the attack was unstoppable, even if the calm with which Grebnev made multiple moves with a second on his clock was admirable.

Esipenko inflicted Grebnev's only loss of the tournament. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

Grebnev then had to win the second game on demand, but was held to a draw that lasted 145 moves, though the real drama was over in the space of a couple of moves. 46.Nxe5! was a winning blow, but Grebnev missed one detail shortly afterward.

Esipenko plays Shankland, and sooner than he imagined! 

The remaining two matches continued into shorter time controls.

10-Minute Games: Jose Martinez Knocks Out Harikrishna

Jose Martinez is becoming a beast not just in online chess. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

"I was so nervous" admitted Martinez after a match he could easily have won in the first couple of games. He was winning at the end of the first game, and said he saw the winning move, but, unable to calculate it to the end, he made a draw by repetition.

The second rapid game was similar, with Martinez gaining a significant edge with the black pieces but failing to make much of it.

It's been a dream event for Jose, and the Candidates is only two match wins away. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

The dam finally burst in the first 10-minute game, when Martinez again gained a promising position out of the opening and then broke through with 41...h5!. The Mexican number-one commented, "That was the critical moment—he let me go to this crazy position. I think he needed to go 42.h3 and he risked a lot playing 42.gxh5?." Harikrishna was immediately in trouble and eventually found himself in a mating net.

Harikrishna now needed to win with Black and went for a desperate variation of the Modern Defense with an early Na6. As often in such cases, it only led to trouble, and by move 21 White was completely winning.

Martinez didn't play 21.g4! immediately, but he got there a couple of moves later and, by the end, took a draw by three-fold repetition as it was all he needed to reach the World Cup Quarterfinals.

Martinez will face 19-year-old GM Javokhir Sindarov in the Quarterfinals, and commented, "I’m the underdog, I don’t have pressure," before adding, "I don’t want to lose a single classical game!"

5-Minute Games: Dream Win For Donchenko Over Le

16th-seed Sindarov is the highest remaining in the top-half of the bracket after 61st-seed Donchenko knocked out 13th-seed Le. It came despite Donchenko missing a huge chance to win the second classical game, with the German GM reasoning:

I felt basically no matter what happens, unless the match is finished, I will never be closer to getting to the next round than I was yesterday, so there’s no reason to be nervous, but it turns out I could still put myself in situations where it’s very, very difficult to not lose your cool!  

Donchenko also revealed he'd had a curious dream:

I had a dream tonight about playing tiebreaks, but it was a very weird one indeed, because I was playing in some big hall for World Cup tiebreaks, there were a lot of players playing for some reason, and then my opponent came to the board and we started playing and we played two to three minutes, and then I realized it’s not Liem, it’s just some random guy, so the arbiter sent him away! And then Liem comes to the board and we start playing and I remember he played d4, c4, Bf4 and I went for something like d6 and e5, and when I went e5, in my dream, he kind of used sleight of hand to put the bishop on g3 and play another move at the same time, and then I claimed it with the arbiter, at which point he said, "Well, it was worth a try!" And then I got a time advantage, after which I woke up!

We played two to three minutes, and then I realized it's not Liem, it's just some random guy! 

—Alexander Donchenko's dream

The reality of tiebreaks was perhaps no less strange, and had a nightmare quality at times, as the first four games were all won by Black before Donchenko eventually triumphed.

Donchenko shrugged off his miss the day before to win convincingly with Black in the first 15-minute game, meaning all he needed was a draw in the second. Le gambled, but found himself totally busted if Donchenko had gone for 13.e5!. He didn't, until much later, and we got a completely wild game in which the Vietnamese number-one eventually triumphed in the complications.

Donchenko didn't despair, however, and won the next game after Le traded into a losing bishop endgame.

Le almost saved that position, and then in the next 10-minute game he pounced on the mistake 30.Rh4? in a position that had already become tricky for Donchenko. 

Donchenko only finally overcame Le in 5-minute games. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

That meant the tiebreaks had gone to blitz, which on paper was good news for 2013 World Blitz Champion Le. When Donchenko "failed to win with Black" in a quiet first game it seemed it might be set up for the higher seed to take over, but instead Donchenko dominated the final blitz game after Le blundered on move 17 in a theoretical position. The German star got to finish off with a dream win. As he put it, "I think I played well, I found this cheapo with 32.Qg7+! and it worked out really beautifully!"

Last man standing in round five. Photo: Eteri Kublashvili/FIDE.

Donchenko now goes on to play GM Nodirbek Yakubboev in Monday's Quarterfinals, with the stakes increasing again. The winners of the Quarterfinals will stay to the end of the tournament, as even if they lose in the Semifinals they'll get a second chance in a third-placed match for the final spot in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. 

How to watch?

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

The live broadcast was hosted by IMs Jovanka Houska and Anna Rudolf, and John Sargent.

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

Previous reports:

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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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