'Idea was to prepare Gukesh so that there would be no surprises'

Paddy Upton described a scenario he played "over a hundred times" in his head as he flew from South Africa to Singapore.

- Shahid Judge

MUMBAI: In it, he would meet Gukesh Dommaraju shortly after the Indian Grandmaster won the World Chess Championship title. They would embrace, and Upton would tell him, "You deserve this."

"It was uncanny that the movie I played in my head played out exactly in real life as I'd imagined," Upton tells HT over the phone, reflecting on his first-ever meeting with Gukesh, who beat China's Ding Liren to become world champion last week.

Upton, a renowned mental coach from South Africa, has had a long history of helping Indians on their journey to success. He worked with the Indian men's cricket team that won the 2011 ICC World Cup, as well as the men's hockey team that won bronze at the Paris Olympics in September.

He now has a fresh success story to share - that of being part of 18-year-old Gukesh's team. Excerpts:

How have the last six months been for you working with Gukesh?

Gukesh was an absolute pleasure to work with. He had remarkable self-awareness and ability to reflect on his thinking and he would arrive with great questions. He was so receptive to different ideas and new thinking, but he still had the maturity to discern what was relevant for him and what wasn't.

Gukesh comes across as a mature and measured person. Do you feel that sometimes he needs to perhaps act his age, be a teen once in a while?