Bad form? What bad form? GM Javokhir Sindarov has said the struggles World Champion GM Gukesh D has faced ahead of their 2026 World Chess Championship match mean little to him.
The Uzbek challenger, now ranked world number-four in the latest FIDE ratings list, is currently in action at the Global Chess League in Bengaluru, where he is playing as an Icon for the FYERS American Gambits.
But inevitably, this is just the starter, perhaps the pre-meal nibbles, before the main course: his showdown with Gukesh in Geneva later this year—the youngest World Championship match in chess history.
The contrast in form over the past few months has appeared rather alarming.
Sindarov's back end of 2025 and so far in 2026 has been spectacular. He's been on fire, winning two of the hardest events in chess, the FIDE World Cup and the gruelling FIDE Candidates. He's barely put a foot wrong.
Gukesh, on the other hand, has been battered from all sides. The defending champion finished last at Tata Steel, took a pummeling at the Prague Masters and has suffered further setbacks since, including a disappointing Sinquefield Cup. He has now fallen to a lowly number 32 in the September FIDE ratings.
Sindarov isn't reading much into it.
"I didn't take what he played in the last tournaments seriously because during a match he can be completely different," Sindarov told Reuters.
"I'm trying to prepare for his best chess form."
The 20-year-old pointed to Gukesh's own World Championship victory over GM Ding Liren in Singapore in 2024 as evidence of why pre-match form can be misleading.
"People said Ding would lose very easily, but during the match we saw how well he played and how close it was," he said.
Sindarov also dismissed speculation that fellow Indian GM Praggnanandhaa R—who beat him at the Sinquefield Cup last month—could provide Gukesh with valuable insight.
"I think Gukesh doesn't need his advice because both of us understand where we have weaknesses and where we are not strong," he said.
Sindarov has already said he's preparing for what he calls the "hardest tournament" of his life.
Sindarov and his coach Roman Vidonyak have now added that they are sticking largely to the formula that helped him win both the World Cup and Candidates Tournament.
"We will not change a lot of things because what we did worked in our last tournaments," he said.
"We will just improve what we did before the Candidates and the World Cup."
For now, Sindarov's attention is on the Global Chess League. Later this month, Sindarov and Gukesh may meet in a warm-up at the 2026 FIDE Chess Olympiad.
Then comes the big match against Gukesh—and, whatever the rankings and recent results say, the challenger is expecting a very different opponent when the World Championship begins.