Exclusive: GM Srinath Narayanan reflects on Arjun Erigaisi's quarterfinal exit at FIDE World Cup 2025

Indian sports fans witnessed yet another ’19 November’ to forget, as two years on from the cricket team’s devastating defeat to Australia in the ODI World Cup final, it was another moment to forget. Like the defeat to Australia, which left many in tears, 19 Nov 2025 was also a similar moment as India’s only remaining Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi exited the ongoing FIDE Chess World Cup at the quarterfinal stage. His defeat came as a bitter blow to the nation, as no Indian now remains in the competition ahead of the semifinal clashes, which resume on Friday (Nov 21).

Arjun, India’s prime candidate to win the FIDE World Cup, bowed out to China’s GM Wei Yi in the quarter-finals after a tense tiebreak. The defeat also meant India's dream to qualify for The Candidates remains incomplete as he missed out on a top-three qualification. So what went wrong for Arjun and where did he miss out?

WION exclusively spoke to Grandmaster Srinath Narayanan as he gave insights on Arjun’s defeat to Wei Yi.

Question: Can you reflect on Arjun's loss and the key reasons why he was on the receiving end?

Yeah, I think it was a very painful, very difficult loss. I think maybe the worst time to lose is in the quarter final when you are so close. In terms of reflecting the loss, I think his opponent, Wei Yi, was also incredibly strong. It was about 50-50. But on this day, Wei Yi was just the better player. On another day, it might have been Arjun.

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Question: How difficult is it for someone like Arjun to swallow the defeat, knowing he was a couple of wins away from a place in The Candidates in 2026?

It's super, super painful to miss out on The Candidates. This is the third year in a row that he has come so close to qualifying for The Candidates. And to miss out on a whisker like this. So, it's just painful and difficult to process. It's like losing the World Cup final or something similar. It was a pretty straight shootout today between Arjun and Wei Yi. I feel whoever won was almost certainly qualifying for The Candidates.

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Question: Where do you think was the point where Arjun could have capitalized, but then he missed out?

Arjun, I think, had slightly deeper preparation in the game that he lost. But he missed a key moment when he could have played Bf4, not allowing his opponent to play Bd6. He missed that moment, allowing black to play Bd6 and then things became completely equal. And then for a few moves, Arjun kind of lost that sense of danger in the position that he could actually be worse in the long run.

The position was such that there were certain short-term factors in favor of Arjun. But the long-term factors were in favor of Wei Yi. And he kind of underestimated that moment. And Wei Yi just took that moment clinically and got an upper hand. The format is also unforgiving and brutal in the sense that it's mini matches of two games. So it literally gives almost no time for someone to come back into the match.