Javokhir Sindarov is not a big fan of the nickname chess followers have for him these days. Windarov. So what if the pun is as clever as it is accurate.
On Tuesday, Sindarov sealed a win-some first Candidates campaign by drawing his penultimate game against his closest challenger, Anish Giri. The result handed the Uzbek prodigy the Candidates title, thus also securing a World Championship battle against India’s D Gukesh. With one final round left in the tournament, the Uzbek has breezed through an elite field, staying undefeated after 13 rounds while winning six games in a flexing of muscle not many thought was capable at a cut-throat tournament like the Candidates.
Sindarov’s triumph at the Candidates sets up a next-gen showdown at the World Championship with both players being 20 when the tournament is likely held at the end of this year.
Such has been Sindarov’s rampaging run through the Candidates in Cyprus that even modern-day greats have been made aware of their limitations.
“My wife asked me the other day what’s going on with Sindarov’s performance. She asked ‘Have you ever done anything like that?’” Magnus Carlsen recollected in an interview in the middle of the Candidates last week. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, thanks for asking, but not really.’ Which just goes to show that his performance is very, very special.”
Very, very special is one way to put it. The Uzbek has at times tormented the rest of the field, particularly in the first half of the tournament, where in seven rounds, he racked up five wins. He’s played his chess at dizzying speeds, backed by some lethal homework prep that he has come armed with to the tournament.
“It’s just impressive how fast he was in some of his games,” remarked Garry Kasparov in an interview with St Louis Chess Club recently. “It’s a deadly combination: playing fast and playing well.”
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Javokhir Sindarov accepts Anish Giri’s resignation at the Candidates. (Photo: Niki Riga / FIDE)
In a fifth round clash, Sindarov had Hikaru Nakamura in such a tangle mentally with his opening prep that the American spent 67 minutes scratching his head, just contemplating one move: his 13th.
One round before that, against Fabiano Caruana, the veteran who the world had installed as the hottest favourite to win the Candidates, Sindarov again pulled out opening lines that had the redoubtable American in a twist.
“Can you recall a game where Fabi was outplayed from the opening so convincingly?” an impressed Kasparov added.
Javokhir Sindarov reacts during his Candidates 2026 match against Anish Giri on Tuesday at Cyprus. (Photo: Michal Walusza / FIDE)
Talking about another game against Andrey Esipenko where Sindarov again played blindingly-fast chess, Kasparov said: “If I was looking at that position, I would have to think for a while. But he was playing so fast! Boom, boom, boom. Like he was just doing it by smell.”
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Speed has always been Sindarov’s ally in the sport. There is the tale of how his tryst with the sport began when he was just a four-year-old kid. The story goes that in kindergarten he was given an option: learn chess or take a nap.
“I would have done anything but not sleep,” smiled Sindarov as he recollected that story in an interview with FIDE at the start of the tournament.
So he was sent for a chess lesson. Later that evening, he bragged to his grandfather that he could play chess and was found out.
“He asked me, ‘show me how the pieces move’. And I didn’t know anything! So he chided me, ‘How can you learn chess without knowing how pieces move?’ So he taught me himself when I was four,” Sindarov added.
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He sped through the ranks in the blink of an eye. Six months after picking up the sport, he was the best player in his family, beating his grandfather. A few months later, still four years of age, he won an U-7 chess tournament in Tashkent where he lived. Three years on, at seven, he was the U-10 national champion of Uzbekistan.
The rapid rise just didn’t slow down. At the age of 12, Sindarov became one of the youngest grandmasters in chess history, getting his three GM norms in the span of four tournaments across four months. Even now, he occupies the fifth spot on the list of youngest GMs, with players like Praggnanandhaa, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Magnus Carlsen behind him on that list.
ALSO READ | Why Javokhir Sindarov vs Praggnanandhaa is the rivalry that defines this era just as much as Gukesh vs Nodirbek
“I’m a very aggressive player. When I was young, I was always playing aggressive lines, a lot of gambits, openings like Kings Indian. Always playing tricky lines since childhood! This helps me play rapid and blitz chess very well,” Sindarov added.
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A boy who once opted to learn chess at kindergarten instead of taking a nap also spent last year going against the herd and doing things his way. While top players like Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa played in every classical tournament they could, Sindarov played just four classical events in 2025, including the FIDE World Cup in Goa, where he secured his spot in the Candidates.
Then, at the start of 2026, while the rest of the players like Praggnanandhaa, Anish Giri and Wei Yi eased off of tournaments to hold long training camps, Sindarov played in six tournaments.
The only time in his career he’s slowed down was right after he became a grandmaster. That was because he lost motivation.
“When other players my age worked 10 hours a day, I was playing Counter Strike for three to four hours a day. The COVID quarantine really helped me a lot because I got tired of playing Counter Strike and told myself it’s time to get back to chess,” Sindarov admitted in a press conference on Tuesday. In that break he took, Pragg and his contemporaries raced ahead and were 2650 players, about a 100 rating points ahead of him.
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“But I’m very happy with how I have spent my life,” he said.
Having swept through the Candidates, the Uzbek tornado of speed and aggression who they call Windarov is headed Gukesh’s way.
