After losing to German general manager Frederik Svane in the third round of the current Chess World Cup 2025, reigning world champion D Gukesh was unexpectedly eliminated. Since becoming the world champion in December of last year, Gukesh's year has been chaotic. He is under a great deal of pressure since the attention on him has grown.
He recently played for the Romanian club SuperChess at the European Club Cup, where he won an individual gold for Board 1 and contributed to the team's victory.
The coach of D Gukesh summarises 2025
But after being eliminated from the World Cup once more, the pressure mounts, and he must regain his form before retaining his title as world champion the following year.

Grzegorz Gajewski, his coach, summarised his 2025 performance the day before he was eliminated from the World Cup.
He discussed the ongoing attention Gukesh has received after his triumph over Ding Liren last year in an interview with The Indian Express. "Anyone who has spent their entire life striving for anything will eventually succeed. It puts you in a challenging position since you need to think of fresh goals and strategies for self-motivation. For Gukesh, it's somewhat of a transitional time.
"We must remember that he is relatively young and that the competition is fierce. It's not as though he gained the exclusive right to win every game he plays after winning the title.

It's a fiercely competitive sport, and everyone is trying their hardest to defeat him. There were both highs and lows. I believe we're sort of getting back on track, both mentally and physically as well as in terms of sports. And perhaps the ECC was the first indication that Gukesh was returning to his peak performance," he continued.
At Wijk aan Zed, he came the closest to winning an individual title this year, but he lost to R Praggnanandhaa in the decider tie-breaker round and finished second.