D Gukesh finished seventh in the 2024 SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz chess tournament in Croatia after Day 5 and the last day of blitz saw the World Championship challenger fail to climb the rankings. Vidit Gujrathi finished second-from-last, making it a disappointing outing for the Indian pair - while Fabiano Caruana finished top with 27 points, equalling Magnus Carlsen's record on the Grand Chess Tour (GCT).
Caruana leads the GCT with two events to go (22.25 pts), ahead of Alireza Firouzja in second (17.58 pts). Indian pair R Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh are third and fourth (16.25 and 14.25 pts) in the GCT standings.
Gukesh came into the final day on the back of a catastrophic Day 4 of blitz chess, which saw him lose six of nine games and only winning two. His score of 2.5 points on the day was the lowest among all participants. He could only manage the same score on Day 5 as well, with three draws and a solitary win from his nine games - with his overall blitz tally of 5 points the lowest of all participants.
The 18-year-old began with a loss against wildcard Levon Aronian, before facing up to Caruana who took the advantage in the middlegame by 'putting pressure on the pinned piece' and eventually won. Gukesh then stemmed the losing tide with a draw against Ian Nepomniachtchi, before losing to Vidit. A draw against Ivan Saric was followed with a loss to Wesley So, before Gukesh won his only game of the day against Firouzja. The Indian ended his tournament with a loss to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and a draw against Anish Giri - thus ending with 14 points overall and a seventh-place finish.
Vidit fared slightly better than Gukesh on Day 5, earning 3.5 points with two wins and three draws. He began with quick draws against Giri and Aronian, before being in an advantageous position against Caruana only to throw it away. He bounced back with impressive wins over Gukesh and Nepomniachtchi only for inconsistencies to kick in as he lost three consecutive games against Saric, So and Firouzja, and ended his tournament with a draw against MVL.
Gukesh's poor performance in speed chess had Garry Kasparov make some unflattering comments about him.
Kasparov on the 2024 FIDE World Championship Match:
"The world championship match is the match between the two strongest players. Definitely, that's not the case... it's an interesting match. I can hardly call it a world championship."#GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/dYdZUYac1t
- chess24 (@chess24com) July 14, 2024
However, the Indian need not worry as the world championship is battle of classical chess, with rapid & blitz only featuring in the tie-breakers. With four months to go, there's plenty of time for Gukesh to bounce back from his disappointing showing in Croatia.