Expresso Sports Feature: Who is Ding Liren, the first Chinese GM fighting for the world chess championship?

By his admission, Ding Liren doesn’t want to be famous. He says he doesn’t “want to be written about every day, or interviewed after every tournament.” He likes to be by himself and make quiet exits after tournaments. On April 9th, however, the chess world and millions in China had their eyes fixated on the 30-year-old as he took on Ian Nepomniachtchi in the opening game of the World Chess Championship, where both players agreed to a draw.

Ding’s reserved personality has a lot to do with where he grew up – Wenzhou, a port in China. Being situated in a mountainous region, it has been isolated for most of its history not only from the rest of the country but also from the nearby provinces.

But Wenzhou is also the reason why Ding took up chess and why he’s the first man from China who will compete in the World Chess Championship.

In 1995, chess legend GM Viktor Korchnoi travelled to Wenzhou to play a match against Xie Jun, the first women’s world champion from China. It garnered so much local excitement that China declared Wenzhou “The City of Chess”. And so naturally, Ding’s parents decided to enrol him in a chess academy.

It was there that Ding simply excelled. He loved maths and solving problems, so chess became his obsession. Fate also intervened. Legendary chess coach, Chen Lixing, was the coach at the Wenzhou Chess Association at that time. Lixing spotted Ding’s talent and took a special interest in him. Those formative years under Lixing’s tutelage proved crucial to Ding’s success.

Ding’s qualification for the World Championships final will undoubtedly give a huge boost to chess in China, but it’s one of those rare countries where the women’s game has by far outshone the men’s game.

Xie Jun became the first Chinese to win the Women’s World Championship back in 1991. By comparison, only in 2018, did Ding become the first Chinese to play in the Candidates tournament.

The Women’s World Championship final will be played between two Chinese this year, in two Chinese cities nonetheless. Ju Wenjun will try to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie, who won the Candidates earlier this week, beating fellow Chinese and former World Champion Tan Zhongyi.

Ding’s earliest tryst with success came in the Li Chengzhi Cup, which is akin to China’s national junior chess championship. After winning his age group events on multiple occasions, he was hailed as the next Chinese prodigy.

While he also did excellently at the international level, his breakthrough performance was at the Chinese Chess Championship in May 2009. The 12-player field included many strong grandmasters, including GM Wang Hao, GM Bu Xiangzhi, and future women’s world champion GM Hou Yifan. Ding, just 16 at the time, shocked the chess world by winning the tournament, making him the youngest Chinese chess champion in history. In doing so, he also earned his third and final norm required to become a grandmaster with the performance.

After Ding’s stellar debut appearance in the 2018 Candidates Tournament where he finished fourth and unbeaten, he was invited to compete at the 2019 Sinquefield Cup. Ding finished the tournament tied in first place with Magnus Carlsen; therefore, the two played a rapid and blitz tiebreak. After drawing both rapid games, Ding defeated Carlsen in consecutive blitz games to claim first place.

The Covid-19 pandemic meant that Ding could not travel outside of China and so was unable to participate in the qualification cycle for the Candidates Tournament 2022. But as fate would have it, FIDE disqualified GM Sergey Karjakin and rules stated that Karjakin’s replacement would be the highest-rated player who had not already qualified. That happened to be Ding, who was rated 2799 at the time.

The only problem was that the rules also stated that a player had to have played 30 rated FIDE games over the past year. Ding had played only four with around a month to go before the deadline. In a bid to make the country’s top player eligible, the Chinese Chess Federation hastily organized several tournaments for him to play. He completed the punishing month-long quest in style, notching 13 victories, 15 draws, and not a single defeat.

Carlsen’s decision not to defend his title shocked the world, but for those playing in the Candidates, it was an opportunity for two seats up for grabs. Nepo dominated the field and won the tournament, but the battle for second place was the real story. It finally came down to a final-round encounter between Ding and American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.

With a dramatic victory over Nakamura, Ding punched his ticket for the big seat.

FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich said it was the first time in history that a Chinese GM reached the final and fought for the title. He added that they anticipate much interest from China and it’s an opportunity to promote chess in Asia.