India’s WC challenge over as Arjun goes down to Wei

The second seed went down to the Chinese GM in the 2nd tie-break game

- Rutvick Mehta

India's Arjun Erigaisi (left) and China's Wei Yi during their quarter-final tie-breaks on Wednesday.

(FIDE)

After flying smoothly in a tournament where its top prospects suffered a bumpy ride, Arjun Erigaisi’s game and body language met with turbulence at possibly the worst time for him.

It took out the second seed in the quarterfinals of the FIDE World Cup, crushed his goal of getting into the Candidates from being — much like in the previous World Cup within touching distance of it, and left no Indian in the last four in Goa.

With less than 40 seconds left on the clock in the second rapid tiebreak game with Chinese Grandmaster Wei Yi, Erigaisi's face oozed nerves. His eyes kept peeking towards the clock that, on a rare occasion through the past three weeks, wasn't his friend. His left hand, so secure and swift in moving the pieces almost all tournament so far, uncharacteristically hesitated in reaching out to the white rook after more than 10 seconds had been further wiped off the clock.

That move — 41. Rf2, a blunder as per the engines, brought Erigaisi down from a somewhat balanced position to one of danger at a critical moment in the game.

That was the start of the world No. 6 and top-ranked Indian's final few minutes in the World Cup, arriving a lot sooner than expected given his seeding and solid showing up until then.