Recently, India leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal said his idol was Anand when he used to play chess.
Mumbai: India's R Praggnanandhaa at World Youth Chess Championship in Mumbai on Oct 6, 2019. (Photo: IANS)
Chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa on Friday said he always knew he wanted to become like five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.
“I have been a huge fan of Anand and have been drawing inspiration from him since the time I started playing chess,” Asian Youth Championship Winner Praggnanandhaa said on ‘Mind Masters by MFORE’.
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“I met him in 2012 right after he returned to India after winning the world championship where my school had taken us to meet him.
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“It was the moment when I knew I wanted to become like him. A month later, I was representing India at the Asian Youth Championship. I ended up winning the title post which 5 of us from Chennai won the world youth championships and got to meet him again.
“I was lucky to play a game against him at Tata Steel India. I got to learn a lot from him. He’s a huge inspiration,” added the 14-year old.
Star Sports in partnership with MFORE has launched a new series Mind Masters by MFORE to highlight the importance and necessity of mental strength and conditioning in sports.
In the recent episode, five-time World Chess Champion Anand joined host and former India cricketer S Badrinath to share his experiences and talk about the importance of mind skills training and how it helped him as a chess player.
Recently, India leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal said his idol was Anand when he used to play chess.
“I’m glad Anand chose me as his favourite player, when I used to play chess, he was my idol. I played my first nationals of chess in 1998 and at that time I was playing cricket as well,” he had said.
“You can’t play both sports at the same time. For chess, you need 10 – 12 hours of training and then 6 – 8 hours for cricket was getting very difficult. So, when I came back from the World Cup, I told my father I will focus only on cricket.”
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