Arjun Erigaisi’s Candidates 2026 hopes end with defeat in World Rapid Championship 2024
Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi’s Candidates 2026 qualification hopes ended after Russia’s 18-year-old sensation Volodar Murzin won the FIDE World Rapid Championship 2024 in New York on Sunday.
Arjun needed to finish clear first (sole leader) or win via tiebreaks after finishing joint-first to get the Candidates 2026 spot through FIDE Circuit Rating points.
This also meant that 2018 World Championship challenger USA’s Fabiano Caruana became the first player to qualify for Candidates 2026 after leading the FIDE Circuit 2024 leaderboard.
Earlier this month, Caruana took the lead in the 2024 FIDE Circuit race after winning the Saint Louis Masters.
AS IT HAPPENED | WORLD RAPID & BLITZ 2024, DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS
He earned 16.39 points to leap over Arjun.
Arjun contested hard in the Qatar Masters Open 2024 but finished second, meaning that he could not catch up with Caruana. With both players having completed seven tournaments counted towards the 2024 FIDE Circuit final standings, Caruana held a six-point advantage over his main rival which remained the same after the New York event.
A title win at World Rapid would have given Arjun a little over 20 points, which would have replaced his lowest score in seven events — 13.8 — giving just enough points to circumvent Caruana in the Circuit leaderboard.
Out of the seven spots left for Candidates 2026, three are reserved for the top three in World Cup 2025, two from FIDE Grand Swiss 2025, one from Circuit 2025 rating, and one with the highest rating average between August 2025 and January 2026.
The winner of the Candidates 2026 will get to challenge the youngest-ever World Champion in the history of this sport, D. Gukesh.
Gukesh beat China’s Ding Liren in a series of 14 matches in Singapore to be crowned the 18th World Champion.
WHAT IS FIDE CIRCUIT?
The circuit is one of the paths to qualify for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2026. One player who would achieve the highest results during 2024 in eligible tournaments gets the spot in the FIDE Candidates.
Each player had to play in a minimum of five eligible tournaments, including at least four with a standard time control up untill now according to 2024 regulations.
The final score is calculated as the sum of the player’s up to seven highest scores.
FIDE CIRCUIT LEADERBOARD 2024
| Rank | Name | Rating | Country |
| 1. | Fabiano Caruana | 130.42 | USA |
| 2. | Arjun Erigaisi | 124.40 | India |
| 3. | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 108.49 | Uzbekistan |
| 4. | Alireza Firouzja | 88.16 | France |
| 5. | D. Gukesh | 84.13 | India |
| 6. | R. Praggnanandhaa | 66.76 | India |
| 7. | Nodirbek Yakubboev | 57.40 | Uzbekistan |
| 8. | Amin Tabatabaei | 56.39 | Iran |
| 9. | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 55.56 | Uzbekistan |
| 10. | Daniel Dardha | 51.73 | Belgium |
(Updated after Qatar Masters 2024)