Freestyle Chess Grand Slam 2025: Gukesh goes down to Caruana in first-leg of quarterfinal

By our Special Correspondent

World Champion D. Gukesh suffered a rare setback in normal time control, losing to USA’s Fabiano Caruana in the first game of the quarterfinals of the Freestyle Grand Slam chess tournament here.

Gukesh was at the top of his game for a good part, improvising when it was necessary but he failed to find a queen sacrifice in the latter stages of the middle game.