Now, becoming the best player in the world is what I care about most

What must it be like to fulfil your life's greatest dream at 18? It's been less than a week since Gukesh D became world champion, beating China's Ding Liren, and the Indian teen is still wrapping his head around this delightful predicament.

- Susan Ninan

BENGALURU: In an interview to HT, Gukesh opened up about challenges, uncertainties and fresh goals, among other things.

Excerpts:

To realise the dream that got you out of bed all these years, at just 18, must be hard to process... is it a challenge to chase fresh goals?

For the last year, starting from qualifying and winning the Candidates to preparing for the match - this has been the single most important thing. To actually finish this journey on a high was huge. When I had a moment alone after my win, I just thanked God and then went through all the messages from family and friends. I hadn't been in touch with them for a long time, so we chatted. I did not sleep the night I became world champion. But later, when I slept, woke up, and realised that I'm actually done with it, and there are no more games tomorrow, it was a weird feeling. It was weird not to have a racing heart.

It helps to know that this is not the end of the road. Becoming the best player in the world is actually what I care about the most now.

While Ding was resilient and fought brilliantly, it was you who was largely pressing in the match...how much of a difference did knowing that make on how you approached the games?

Right after game two, I realised that he is trying his best to put on a great fight. But he is not the one who is ready to be the aggressor. It's more of a mindset. I think that gave me more freedom to put pressure on him for as long as possible and to tire him out and stuff like that. It was pretty clear from game two that I was the one who was pressing most of the game. So, yeah, it was kind of nice to know that and I was also trying to keep him on the board, because that's how it's supposed to go.

You were not exactly at your best. Was it hard to make peace with the fact that to win, you didn't necessarily have to be at your best, only better than your opponent?