Praggnanandhaa has historic world No. 3 FIDE ranking spot up for grabs after stunning world champion Gukesh

Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa climbed to a career-best world No.3 ranking in the live rating after a stunning win over world champion D Gukesh at the Sinquefield Cup 2025. With his Round 1 victory over Gukesh on Monday, Pragganandha overtook Fabiano Caruana in the live rating as the American played out a draw against Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland.

Now the biggest challenge for Praggnanandhaa would be to maintain his top form till the end of August to emerge as the new World No.3 when fresh FIDE rankings are published on 1 September 2025. Interestingly, Praggnanandhaa faces his closest competitor Caruana in the second round of the Sinquefield Cup 2025 on Tuesday. A victory against Caruana will give the 20-year-old Indian Grandmaster a nice cushion as he aims to become world No.3 in the published FIDE ranking for the first time.

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Praggnanandhaa secures highest live rating, ranking after beating Gukesh

Praggnanandhaa's highest FIDE ranking is No. 4, which he achieved in July 2025. This is the first time he has reached No. 3 in live standings. He also has an Elo rating of 2784 currently in live standings, which is his personal best.

He is only behind Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, who have an over 2800 Elo rating.

The icing on the cake was Praggnanandhaa's victory over compatriot Gukesh in a Classical match for the first time since April 2022. Praggnanandhaa had last beaten Gukesh in a Classical match at the Kvika Reykjavík Open on 12 April 2022.

"At this point, I think I know all the players quite well. I have played a lot against them. It’s not that I know Gukesh particularly well, but I haven’t had really great results against him in the last few years. This is my first classical win in like three years and the previous one I got was also lucky because he was completely winning throughout,” Praggnanandhaa said. “Also, I messed up three winning positions last year. Yeah, so, finally, I am happy that I managed to get one win.

“This is my first win here at Sinquefield Cup. Last year, I made nine draws, which is also where I spoiled many winning positions. This is a different story. Yeah, I am happy to be here and it’s nice to be here.”

Reflecting on where Gukesh went wrong, Praggnanandhaa said, “It was a smooth game. It was surprising from him because he was off at the start, like he spent so much time at a theoretical position and this endgame is just unpleasant for him. It started to get worse and worse. I guess the last chance was to take his pawn on B4, but I think it still should be winning and I think it’s a good game to start with.”