Ding, Dommaraju tied after six games at World Chess Championship

Teen challenger Gukesh Dommaraju of India holds reigning champ Ding Liren after first week of competition.

The 2024 World Chess Championship is finely poised after defending champion Ding Liren and teenage challenger Gukesh Dommaraju played out a thrilling 46-move draw in Singapore.

The score is tied at three points each after six games, rounding off the first week of the 14-game series.

Monday will be a rest day, and play resumes on Tuesday.

Ding, a Chinese grandmaster, started strongly on Sunday, putting his 18-year-old Indian challenger on the defensive.

But Dommaraju recovered to send the match down into a dramatic double-rook endgame with pawns strewn across the board.

A threefold repetition after 46 moves from both players ended the game in a draw after more than four hours.

The Indian rejected a chance to end the game in a draw earlier despite being worse off on the board and nearly paid for it.

“I just thought there was still a lot of play left in the position, and I didn’t really see much danger for me,” Dommaraju told reporters after the match.

“I wanted to play a longer game than just finishing at that point.”

Ding, 32, who played with the white pieces, admitted he had let his advantage slip at critical moments.

“That’s what I should improve in the next couple of games,” he said after the match.

Ding defeated Dommaraju in game one on Monday before their second encounter ended in a draw. Dommaraju hit back by winning game three on Wednesday followed by draws in games four and five.

There are 14 match days, and the first player to get 7.5 points is declared the winner. Tie-breaks will take place if the players are tied on seven points after 14 games.

Dommaraju is the youngest player in history to compete in the World Chess Championship, and he is looking to surpass Garry Kasparov as the youngest undisputed world chess champion.

He said on Sunday that he was happy to have rebounded from his first-game loss but added there is still a long way to the finish.

“We are not even halfway through the event,” he said.