Nodirbek Abdusattorov

Uzbekistan's No. 1

“I think the current problem for Gukesh is self-imposed pressure. He’s asking too much from himself. He thinks that he has to win every tournament, that he has to show the best, high-quality chess in every tournament.

But I don’t think he has any chess problems or any other problems. Otherwise, he’s a great player. If you look at his performance in the previous Candidates, in the Olympiad, in some other tournaments — he played phenomenally!

Anyways, I have an original thought — I think that once he loses his title, he will come back and become much stronger. I already said earlier that Gukesh will lose his title in the next match in an interview, and then people started to criticize me for that statement. But then I said it just for content.

And now, today’s situation justifies my take. It’s starting to look like a very objective evaluation.”