5 min readChennaiUpdated: Jul 16, 2026 05:54 PM IST Javokhir Sindarov recoiled at the question, simple enough as it was. Since he had won the FIDE World Cup and then the Candidates to secure a shot at the world champion’s crown, was he now Uzbekistan’s numero uno? “No, come on!” he said almost as if he had been embarrassed by the question itself. “If you ask me even 10 years from now, I will not say so because (Nodirbek) Abdusattorov is super strong. But I never want to say something like this: that I am better than him.” Sindarov was at the Norway Chess tournament at the time, answering questions from Indian journalists about his remarkable rise to becoming a world championship contender. But in the giddy recollection of his own rise, he wanted to make sure that his contemporary’s achievements were not minimised. “For young players in Uzbekistan, Nodirbek was like a superhero,” Sindarov had said. “If you are the best chess player in the country and no one can beat you, then it’s …