Sindarov in danger of running away with the Candidates after he moves to 5.5/6 - 6

Javokhir Sindarov won yet again to move to 5.5/6 and revive memories of Veselin Topalov's 6.5/7 in the first half of the World Championship tournament in San Luis in 2005 (and as Anand admitted, the only person to draw, he saved a lost position), there in exactly the same format, Topalov cruised to victory by drawing the entirity of the second half of the tournament. Whilst Sindarov is on fire, and just looking and feeling in total control, he's only a point and a half clear of Fabiano Caruana at the moment. As stunning as his performance is, he's not yet a certainty, but the performance has been mind blowing. Today he survived some testing moments against Wei Yi, never seemed in real trouble, he didn't even have to be really accurate to take advantage of Wei Yi's time trouble and nerves.

In the women's event Anna Muzychuk now leads alone on 4/6 a point clear of most of the rest of the field. That definitely doesn't feel in any way settled as the chess is both exciting and unpredictable.

Round 7 (of 14) Standings: 1st Javokhir Sindarov, 5½/7. 2nd Fabiano Caruana, 4. 3rd-4th R Praggnanandhaa and Anish Giri, 3. 5th Matthias Bluebaum, 2½. 6th-8th Andrey Esipenko, Yi Wei and Hikaru Nakamura, 2. 8 players. FIDE Women Candidates DRR.

Round 7 (of 14) Women's Standings: 1st Anna Muzychuk, 4/7. 2nd-6th Rameshbabu Vaishali, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Deshmukh Divya, Jiner Zhu and Kateryna Lagno, 3. 7th-8th Zhongyi Tan and Bibisara Assaubayeva, 2½. 8 players.

Round 7 Sunday 5th April 2026. FIDE Candidates Andrey Esipenko — Wei Yi Javokhir Sindarov — Anish Giri Matthias Bluebaum — Hikaru Nakamura Praggnanandhaa R — Fabiano Caruana

FIDE Women’s Candidates Anna Muzychuk — Bibisara Assaubayeva Divya Deshmukh — Kateryna Lagno Vaishali Rameshbabu — Tan Zhongyi Aleksandra Goryachkina — Zhu Jiner