Author: Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

HS Prannoy had pulled off a heist in the BWF World Championships in 2023. Trailing against runaway favourite Viktor Axelsen at his den in Copenhagen, the half-fit Indian produced a stunner to win that quarter-final. His bronze ensured the country’s record of returning with at least one medal from badminton’s biggest competition since 2011 remained intact. The other contenders had lost. Prannoy delivered against the Dane, who was the top seed and towering above him in every respect. He was jaded, but summoned an outburst of energy to cause the upset of the event. That record seems to be going…

When the year started, all eyes in chess were on D Gukesh. The world champion was the talking point. Quietly, another player from Chennai was plotting a comeback. Nearly eight months, three tournament-wins and some healthy gains in the world rankings later, R Praggnanandhaa is one of the players of 2025. He is hanging in at the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis in the US, at joint second after Round 6, with three more to go. Gukesh is fifth in the field of 10 players. Five of the world’s top 10 are taking part in the event. Pragg is gradually…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay Khanderi is almost a godforsaken place on the Rajkot-Jamnagar Highway. It’s about 20 kms from the heart of Rajkot. Until a few years ago, it was difficult to get there due to lack of commute options. The place became famous after the Saurashtra Cricket Stadium came up there — a giant structure in the middle of nowhere. Now, of course, it’s called the Niranjan Shah Stadium. On international match days, the place comes alive and lies forlorn for the rest of the year. That is not the story. Beyond that stadium, in a place called Taragadi, further…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay Known mostly as the father of Leander Paes, Vece Paes was an exceptional personality in the Indian sporting ecosystem. After a distinguished career as a hockey player, during which he won a bronze medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics, he turned to his profession of medicine and remained associated with sports. In his death in Kolkata at the age of 80, the fraternity lost someone who understood their pain. Almost everything in Paes’s life was about sports. Leander’s mother, Jennifer, was the captain of the Indian basketball team. Leander, of course, became the most famous sporting figure to…

What is Duleep Trophy? It’s supposed to be a fairly prestigious domestic first-class tournament, which some of the most distinguished of cricket personalities don’t care about. And they are right. Why should anyone bother about something which can at best can get you to some godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere. Happening people don’t go there. Ironically, ‘happen’ is the word which has kept this competition alive for some 60-plus years. Through turbulence, negligence and irrelevance. There were years when it was not held. There were experiments. Teams from England, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh played in it. For one year, it…

Atreyo Mukhopdhyay The ‘live ratings’ help understand the task Divya Deshmukh will be facing after winning the women’s chess World Cup in Georgia two days ago. These are unofficial, real-time calculations of a player’s rating based on the results of their games in major tournaments. They reflect the rating changes after each game. The current list shows that the top five women in the world are from China. It has been seen that the live ratings are fairly accurate. What they calculate is what is seen in the official list when it is released by FIDE every month. The live…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay The protagonists were different but the initial and raw emotions the same. Divya Deshmukh was hugging her mother and crying after winning the Women’s Chess World Cup in Batumi in Georgia, exactly like D Gukesh threw himself into his father, unable to control tears after becoming the youngest-ever world champion in Singapore last December. This is arguably the second-biggest title in the women’s game. Before Divya and Koneru Humpy — who she beat on tie-breaker in the final — no Indian had reached the final. The reigning world junior girls’ (U-20) champion’s success in this knockout event is…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay It’s tempting to find similarities between the triumph of D Gukesh against Ding Liren of China in last year’s World Championship match, and Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh beating Chinese opponents to set up an all-India final in the ongoing Women’s Chess World Cup. The first is the biggest title in chess and the second the second-biggest prize in the women’s game. It’s a big coincidence that Indian players slew heavyweights from the Red Dragon to win these competitions. That’s where the similarity ends. Ding is from China and he won the world crown before Gukesh alright, but…

The normally staid ambience of Indian golf is waking up to some action. A new and ambitious venture called the Indian Golf Premier League (IGPL) has been launched and the first edition is expected later this year. Inspired by IPL to an extent, this franchise-based, six-team league will be played on a home-and-away basis. Each team will have 10 players including women pros. Mansukh Mandaviya, the Union spots minister, was present at the launch recently. The IGPL has also tied up with Women’s Golf Association of India and Indian Golf Union, which runs amateur golf and selects teams for Asian…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay Asked what she wants to do after achieving her best performance till date at a senior, individual event, the first thing Divya Deshmukh said was she wanted to doze off. “I just want to have some sleep and food,” the first Indian to reach the Women’s Chess World Cup final told the official broadcaster in Batumi in Georgia. The drama on the board hardly let anybody sleep though. Divya looked like winning a few times against China’s Tan Zongyi, a former world champion who lost this year’s World Championship bout against compatriot Ju Wenjun. Divya kept missing the…