Andrey Esipenko Interview: How Arsenal-Tottenham game, Novak Djokovic helped Russian win Candidates spot & overcome heartbreak against Wei Yi

“I don’t have too many emotions; I’m just very happy,” said Esipenko after qualifying for the Candidates. A relaxed undertone colored his answers, as if he were too exhausted and elated for deep analysis of his own games.

“I will get drunk,” he laughed. “We (his second David Paravyan and him) found a new restaurant that we visited after the game against Wei Yi. The music was so loud we couldn’t even speak to each other. We’ll probably go back there to have fun.”

Having received a bye in the first round, Esipenko played 14 classical games and a total of 30 games across different formats, including shorter time-control tiebreaks. He won five of the 14 classical matches, lost one, and drew eight. Aside from his straight wins in Classical matches over Nijat Abasov in the second round and Yakubboev in the third-place playoff, every one of Esipenko’s rounds went to a tiebreak, which compounded his exhaustion.

“In this tournament, I played a lot of different openings with black, so I also had to give a lot of energy to preparation,” he explained. “Let’s say, if I played just one opening, like Wei Yi plays the Petrov Defence… but I played basically everything. I had to prepare more, and that’s why I’m so exhausted. I’ve never felt so exhausted in my life.”

After losing to Wei Yi, going on tilt was not an option for Esipenko. He had to reset and face the tactically astute Yakubboev the very next day. Here, a suggestion from legendary tennis player Novak Djokovic helped him get back into the groove.

“I think after the game against Wei Yi, I watched a Novak Djokovic interview,” he revealed. “He said that everybody can have bad moments, but what’s important is how you react afterward. One bad moment doesn’t mean anything; you just have to continue. You have more games to come. If something bad happens, it’s important to react well.”

Another thing that helped him overcome the loss was his favourite Premier League club, Arsenal, thrashing their London rivals Tottenham Hotspur 4-1 in the North London derby on Sunday.

“I was having bad thoughts for a few hours after the semifinal loss,” Esipenko admitted. “But then I watched the Arsenal game against Tottenham, where we completely crushed them. I was very happy about that, and I felt like, ‘Let’s just finish this tournament somehow… and qualify for the Candidates.’”

Andrey Esipenko defeated Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Yakubboev in FIDE World Cup 2025 third place playoffs. (PHOTO: Michal Walusza/FIDE)

Before confirming his qualification, Esipenko was too “scared” to even think about the Candidates. “Now I can finally have some thoughts about this,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t expect to play in the Candidates. I expected it when I was younger, but I didn’t know what I would feel, what kind of emotions I would go through if it became reality. To experience it now is just crazy.”

Flashback of 2023

The rook blunder against Wei Yi also brought back the heartbreak of his 2023 FIDE World Cup exit, where he missed a mate-in-three against India’s D. Gukesh in the fourth-round tiebreaks before blundering a bishop and getting knocked out in a similar fashion.

“I had some flashbacks of the last World Cup, where I also blundered a bishop to Gukesh, if you remember,” Esipenko recalled. “In important games, I’ve had this problem, but I don’t know what to do with it because it’s not about chess, and it’s also not about psychology.”

“I felt really good during the game against Wei Yi, but then something just happened. I believe it’s because I was too exhausted. Even in this match against Yakubboev, I was extremely exhausted.”

While the Candidates spot means the world to him, Esipenko insisted that not qualifying wouldn’t have changed his path. He said, “Yes, it means a lot. But if I hadn’t qualified, I would just continue working. It wouldn’t really change anything for me.”