NEW DELHI: The tender thud of a yellow smiley-face sponge ball putting the ground time and again barely disturbed the silence of a five-star resort room, the place 18-year-old Pranav Venkatesh and his coach, GM Shyam Sundar M, have been placing up throughout the Chennai Masters in November final yr.
Standing tall with a desk tennis racquet — now a makeshift cricket bat — Pranav had already remodeled his room into the quietest battleground ever. And if there was no sponge ball or desk tennis racquet? No downside! The coed-teacher duo would improvise, turning a bottle cap right into a ball and the bottle right into a bat, maximising using their restricted sources.
It’s a acquainted sight of Pranav staying together with his mentor earlier than a significant event.
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It’s unconventional, but it surely works. Cricket, usually seen by the mentor as a break from the psychological grind, has turn out to be a part of Pranav’s preparation routine for chess.
“Cricket, badminton, any sport… we play all of it within the room,” Shyam, who couldn’t journey to Montenegro to witness his scholar clinch the World Junior Chess Championship title attributable to visa points, informed TimesofIndia.com throughout an unique dialog.
A chess connection discovered within the subject of cricket
Pranav’s journey to changing into the junior world chess champion, curiously, started on a cricket subject a yr in the past.
Shyam, who runs his chess academy, Chess Thulir, in Chennai close to Perambur, usually performs cricket together with his college students to bond with them and preserve them bodily energetic.
“Pranav got here to play cricket a couple of instances, similar to another teenager,” Shyam recalled with a chuckle. “Again then, he wasn’t even coaching for chess with me.”
However that quickly modified.
Although he had educated with different coaches prior to now, it was solely after his father approached Shyam that their critical chess journey started.
“We began working collectively formally round January final yr,” Shyam famous. “By then, Pranav was already a grandmaster. However my purpose was to take him to the following stage.”
Thus started a yr of intense coaching, the place Shyam sought to steadiness Pranav’s pure talent in fast-paced codecs like fast and blitz with the endurance wanted for longer, extra gruelling classical video games.
“It’s like T20 cricket versus Take a look at cricket,” Shyam defined. “You possibly can hit the ball out of the park in T20, however in Take a look at cricket, you want endurance to play the lengthy sport. Equally, in chess, Pranav was sensible at fast codecs, however I wished him to grasp the longer codecs too.”
Pranav, already recognised for his acumen in blitz video games — having even defeated high gamers like Magnus Carlsen in on-line matches — needed to channel his intuition for pace right into a extra methodical method.
Nonetheless, the transition wasn’t simple.
‘The primary few months a means of trial and error’
“Initially, it took a while. We labored collectively for 2 months, after which he went to Spain to play a couple of occasions. It didn’t go nicely, which was anticipated as a result of I would like time to know any participant I work with. The primary few months are at all times a means of trial and error — attending to know their psychology and method. So, the primary two or three months didn’t go very nicely,” Shyam informed TimesofIndia.com. “As soon as I began to know him a lot better, it went very nicely. He was successful occasions just like the Dubai Police Championship and Sharjah Masters.”
These victories, although spectacular, have been only the start.
By December 2024, Pranav had certified for the distinguished Chennai Masters Match after successful the Chennai Challenges Invitational.
It was at this occasion that the coach-player duo cemented their distinctive pre-match routine, which included enjoying cricket in resort rooms to calm down earlier than a match.
“We used to play cricket within the room with a bottle cap, stress balls, no matter was obtainable,” Shyam stated, laughing. “The thought was to maintain Pranav relaxed.”
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Pranav, a boy of few phrases, has remained humble all through this era. With no presence on social media, he’s managed nicely by his father, Venkatesh, who usually travels with him to totally different international locations for tournaments.
Pranav’s closing push for glory
Shyam, being a grandmaster himself, was not unaware that the stress was mounting on Pranav, particularly as he ready for his final problem: the 2025 World Junior U20 Chess Championship in Petrovac, Montenegro.
Because the event neared, making ready for the event was getting difficult. “Simply earlier than the event, we had a couple of on-line classes. Initially, we had deliberate to play totally different openings,” Shyam admitted. “But it surely wasn’t only a inflexible plan A, B, or C. Plan A didn’t really feel fairly proper, so we adjusted. What was initially Plan B and C grew to become Plan A.”
However because the event kicked off, Shyam mirrored, “He began sturdy, and as soon as he took a one-point lead, he maintained it and transformed his probabilities nicely.”
His final-round draw in opposition to Matic Lavrencic, securing a rating of 9/11, sealed the victory and solidified Pranav’s standing as one of many brightest younger stars within the chess world.
“I spoke to him after the ultimate spherical,” Shyam recalled, his voice stuffed with satisfaction. “He was at all times assured. He informed me, ‘Come on, do not you recognize that is my sort of place? How might I mess this up?'”
However for Shyam, the nerves have been unavoidable. “Over the past spherical, I used to be so anxious that I went to the temple. I needed to swap off the web, in fact. After popping out, I turned my knowledge again on, and there it was—he messaged, ‘I received the event.’ I simply thought, ‘Thank God!’”
Profitable the World Junior Chess Championship — a title beforehand held by none apart from Viswanathan Anand — has been the summit of Pranav’s profession to date.
The journey, nonetheless, wasn’t nearly successful.
It was in regards to the bond constructed over shared video games of cricket, the relentless coaching, and the mutual respect between coach and scholar.
“We communicate the identical regional language — Tamil — so we get alongside very nicely. We crack jokes, and he is like an harmless child. He doesn’t have many distractions,” stated the 32-year-old coach. “It’s a superb relationship. He watches a whole lot of comedy films, so we use film references whereas joking.”
As Pranav stood on the rostrum in Montenegro, a smile on his face, trophy in hand, he appeared again — not simply on the hours spent hunched over a chessboard, but additionally at these moments in resort rooms, the place the sound of a bottle cap hitting the wall did little to disturb others.
