FIDE WORLD CUP 2021 – Start of the Quarterfinals

The 2021 FIDE World Cup reached Quarterfinals in Men’s event, while the Women’s World Cup got to the stage of Semifinals.

6 tie-break matches of Round 5 were played yesterday in Open section, bringing exciting games and great fights.

Read more: FIDE WORLD CUP R5- Calm before the storm

Reigning World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, won the match against 19 years old Russian GM Esipenko Andrey. After two decisive victories in the blitz match, Carlsen won the seat in Quarterfinals, heading to the title of World Cup Champion.

Interview with Magnus Carlsen after the Round 5:

After 5 consecutive draws in the match between Karjakin Sergey and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the Russian Supergrandmaster won the 6th game with Black pieces to advance to the Quarterfinals.

Read more: FIDE WORLD CUP 2021 – Top seeds join the fights

Experienced Russian Grandmaster, Vladimir Fedoseev, convincingly won the biggest surprise of the 2021 World Cup, Velimir Ivic. Ivic was the only player rated less than 2600 to reach the 1/8 finals of the event.

After the first draw in the classical part of the match, Ivic missed chances to win in the game 2, and the match went to tiebreaks. Fedoseev won the first rapid game, putting pressure on 18 years old Serbian prodigy. Even though he had a winning position in the second rapid game, Ivic lost the advantage due to a time trouble, and the match ended with a 3-1 result in favour of Vladimir Fedoseev.

Interview of Vladimir Fedoseev after the victory over Velimir Ivic:

Tabatabaei M.Amin qualified for the Round 6 after defeating Armenian GM Haik Martirosyan in the tiebreak rapid match. The first rapid game ended in a draw, but Tabatabaei managed to outplay Martirosyan in the game two, taking the qualification spot for FIDE Grand Prix series 2022 and advanced to Quarterfinals.

After two calm draws in the classical part of the match between Alexander Grischuk and Duda Jan-Krzysztof, the first game of tiebreaks ended in a decisive result. Duda took an important lead and after the draw was claimed in the 2nd game of tiebreaks, Polish GM booked the seat for the Round 6.

French Grandmaster Bacrot Ettiene took two decisive final victories in the second rapid match against Piorun Kacper. With a final result of 4-2, Bacrot advanced to Round 6 where he meets with World Champion.

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Shankland Sam were the only ones on the break yesterday since they qualified for the 6th round after two classical games.

Having Black pieces, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi won the second game against Vasif Durarbayliwith to win the match with a final 1.5-0.5 score.

Shankland Sam was victorious as White against Peter Svidler. Since the first game ended in a draw, the final result was 1.5-0.5 for Shankland. He didn’t hide happiness on his Twitter account:

The Quarterfinals bring the following matches:

Ettiene Bacrot – Magnus Carlsen
Sam Shankland – Sergey Karjakin
Tabatabaei M. Amin – Fedoseev Vladimir
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi – Duda Jan-Krzysztof

Read more about FIDE World Chess Cup 2021:

FIDE WORLD CUP R4 preview – Caruana and Giri are out!
FIDE WORLD CUP 2021 – Round 3 underway
Anish Giri takes home 0.6 rating from the FIDE World Cup
Aronian describes his trip to Sochi after withdrawal
One player tested positive on Covid19 at the FIDE World Cup 2021