The credibility of Ding’s world title, of course, remains an open question. The absence of Magnus Carlsen continues to loom large over the sport’s showcase event. The 33-year-old Norwegian has been ranked No 1 for more than 14 straight years and was considered the world’s best player even before he defeated Viswanathan Anand for the world championship in 2013. He strengthened his claim as the greatest player of any era in 2021, when he crushed Nepomniachtchi in Dubai in the fourth defense of the title.

But Carlsen decided against defending it for a fifth time in 2023, citing a lack of motivation to go through the months-long slog of preparation that championship matches demand. It marked only the second time in the history of world title matchplay that a holder opted not to defend his crown after Bobby Fischer controversially forfeited the belt in 1975.

My hottest take is that I don’t treat it as a world championship match. For me a world championship match was always the match for the title of the best player in the world. I think the history of the world championship matches, it started, by the way, here in St Louis, with Steinitz facing Zukertort back in 1886, has ended with Magnus Carlsen. There were 16 world champions, you could call them at every given moment the best players. It’s those who took the title by beating the best player. With all due respect, Ding playing Gukesh, it’s an important event, it’s still a Fide event, it’s an ‘official title’, but these days with all the modern technologies, with chess getting faster and faster, with our lives getting also faster, to keep an antiquated system of qualification, 18 months or longer, to select the challenger, it’s not adequate. ... It’s an event that has nothing to do with the main idea of the world championship – to decide, to define the best player on the planet.

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