Flawless Pranav Wins Junior Crown
By Cameron W. · Sat, 07 Nov 2026
Pranav V. starts the World Junior Rapid with six straight wins, takes rapid silver, then wins the blitz crown in Al Ain by a full point.
For two days in Al Ain, V. Pranav looked untouchable. Six rounds, six wins, a lone lead at the top of the World Junior Rapid, and a rook sacrifice against the second seed that would have made a nice puzzle for any chess book. Then the last three rounds went a different way, and the gold went to someone else. Pranav's answer arrived two days later, when he won the blitz title with a point to spare.
A perfect start
Pranav came into the nine-round rapid as the top seed and the reigning World Junior Champion in classical chess, and he played like it. He beat Muzaffarjon Abdurasulov, Musa Zakirov, Eldiyar Orozbaev and Satbek Akhmedinov in the first four rounds, then the second seed, Artem Uskov, in round five. The sixth win, over Artiom Stribuk, took 66 moves, according to ChessBase India.
The Uskov game was the highlight. Pranav, with Black in a Caro-Kann, answered 20.g3 with 20...Bxg3!, and after 23.Be3 he played the stunning 23...Rh1+!!, a rook offered on a square where it could be taken, because 24.Kxh1 would run into 24...Qh4+ and 25...Qh2 mate. ChessBase India notes that the engine saw the position as dead equal until move 19, so there was little warning for White.
Silver in the rapid
The finish was less perfect. FIDE reports that Khumoyun Begmuratov of Uzbekistan won the open with an unbeaten 7.5/9, while Pranav ended on 7/9, a place ahead of Azerbaijan's Raad Samadov on tiebreaks. By simple subtraction, Pranav scored one point from his last three games, though the reports do not say how those rounds went. In round seven he had Black against Samadov, one of the players chasing him.
Blitz gold
He did not have long to dwell on it. On Friday, November 6, Pranav won the World Junior Blitz Championship with 10.5 points from 13 rounds, a full point clear of the field, according to The Logical Indian, myKhel and The Bridge. Kyrgyzstan's Orozbaev, whom Pranav had beaten in round three of the rapid, and Armenia's Robert Piliposyan finished on 9.5, as did Syria's Mazen Fandi, who took fourth on tiebreaks. The time control was three minutes plus two seconds per move. Pranav entered as the top-rated player in the field, according to The Logical Indian.
The title adds to a growing collection. Wikipedia lists him as India's 75th grandmaster, a title he earned in 2022, as the 2025 World Junior champion in Petrovac with 9/11, and as the winner of both the under-18 rapid and blitz titles at the 2024 World Youth Championships. That page lists his classical rating at 2677 and his world rank at 41st as of September 2026.
The girls' blitz
The girls' blitz went to Valeria Kleymenova, who scored 10 points, according to myKhel. She had been among the leaders in the rapid, on 5.5/6, though the rapid title went to the Netherlands' Eline Roebers. Among the Indian girls, Aamuktha Guntaka scored 9 points and Savitha Shri B 8.5. The sources disagree on Guntaka's exact place, fourth in one report and fifth in two others.
A week worth remembering
Pranav leaves Al Ain with one silver and one gold, and the memory of a perfect start. It is not the clean sweep that six wins in a row promised. But in a week that gave him a game worth keeping and a world title, it is hard to call it anything but a success.
Sources
- ChessBase India, "World Junior Rapid 2026: V. Pranav makes it six out of six!"
- FIDE, "World Junior Rapid Championship 2026: Khumoyun Begmuratov and Eline Roebers capture titles" (Nov 6, 2026)
- The Logical Indian, "Indian Grandmaster Pranav Venkatesh Wins World Junior Blitz Chess Championship With 10.5 Points"
- myKhel, "Indian Chess Sensation Pranav Venkatesh Wins World Junior Blitz Title" (Nov 7, 2026)
- The Bridge, "Chess: Pranav Venkatesh crowned world junior blitz champion" (Nov 7, 2026)
- Wikipedia, "Pranav V"
