Ding Liren needs to paly a total of 26 classical games to qualify for the Candidates 2022. After Nakamura and Rapport qualified from the Grand Prix, only one spot remains open – that of Sergey Karjakin, who was banned by FIDE for 6 months.
Ding Liren has just completed 12 out of the 26 required games, as part of the mandatory qualifiers for the 19th Asian Championships. The qualifiers, which took place in Hangzhou, were a 4 player quadruple round robin. Ding Liren won convincingly with 10,5/12. This adds 11,8 ELO to his rating, making him #2 in the world with 2810,8 , ahead of Alireza Firouzja with 2804.
The next event for Ding Liren is a 6-game classical match against GM Wei Yi that will take place April 5-10. Chessdom.com will follow closely the events and the quest of Ding Liren with daily updates on the main page and Twitter and Facebook.
More on Sergey Karjakin’s case: Karjakin ban by FIDE announced / Karjakin posts comments on the ban, decides not to appeal, but Kremlin supports Karjakin / Top players comment on Karjakin ban / All stories on Sergey Karjakin here More on the 19th Asian Games: Qualifiers announced / Ding Liren in Hangzhou qualifiers All news about Ding Liren here
