NEW DELHI: The gentle thud of a yellow smiley-face sponge ball hanging the ground repeatedly barely disturbed the silence of a five-star resort room, the place 18-year-old Pranav Venkatesh and his coach, GM Shyam Sundar M, had been placing up in the course of the Chennai Masters in November final yr.
Standing tall with a desk tennis racquet — now a makeshift cricket bat — Pranav had already reworked his room into the quietest battleground ever. And if there was no sponge ball or desk tennis racquet? No drawback! The scholar-teacher duo would improvise, turning a bottle cap right into a ball and the bottle right into a bat, maximising the usage of their restricted sources.
It’s a acquainted sight of Pranav staying together with his mentor earlier than a significant match.
Go Past The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!
It’s unconventional, nevertheless it works. Cricket, usually seen by the mentor as a break from the psychological grind, has change into 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 on account of visa points, instructed TimesofIndia.com throughout an unique dialog.

A chess connection discovered within the area of cricket

Pranav’s journey to turning into the junior world chess champion, apparently, started on a cricket area 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 maintain them bodily energetic.
“Pranav got here to play cricket a number of occasions, 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 skilled 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 subsequent stage.”

Thus started a yr of intense coaching, the place Shyam sought to stability Pranav’s pure talent in fast-paced codecs like speedy 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 recreation. Equally, in chess, Pranav was sensible at fast codecs, however I needed 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.
Nevertheless, the transition wasn’t simple.

‘The primary few months a technique of trial and error’

“Initially, it took a while. We labored collectively for 2 months, after which he went to Spain to play a number of occasions. It didn’t go nicely, which was anticipated as a result of I want time to know any participant I work with. The primary few months are at all times a technique of trial and error — attending to know their psychology and method. So, the primary two or three months didn’t go very nicely,” Shyam instructed TimesofIndia.com. “As soon as I began to know him significantly better, it went very nicely. He was successful occasions just like the Dubai Police Championship and Sharjah Masters.”
These victories, although spectacular, had been just the start.

By December 2024, Pranav had certified for the celebrated Chennai Masters Event 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 out there,” Shyam stated, laughing. “The concept was to maintain Pranav relaxed.”
READ ALSO: ‘A big step forward for women’: World No. 8 Anna Muzychuk on equal prize in Norway Chess | Exclusive
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 completely different nations for tournaments.

Pranav’s ultimate push for glory

Shyam, being a grandmaster himself, was not unaware that the strain was mounting on Pranav, particularly as he ready for his final problem: the 2025 World Junior U20 Chess Championship in Petrovac, Montenegro.
Because the match neared, making ready for the match was getting tough. “Simply earlier than the match, we had a number of on-line periods. Initially, we had deliberate to play completely different openings,” Shyam admitted. “Nevertheless it 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 turned Plan A.”
However because the match 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 delight. “He was at all times assured. He instructed me, ‘Come on, do not you realize that is my sort of place? How may I mess this up?'”

However for Shyam, the nerves had been unavoidable. “Over the last spherical, I used to be so anxious that I went to the temple. I needed to change off the web, after all. After popping out, I turned my information again on, and there it was—he messaged, ‘I gained the match.’ I simply thought, ‘Thank God!’”
Profitable the World Junior Chess Championship — a title beforehand held by none aside from Viswanathan Anand — has been the summit of Pranav’s profession thus far.

The journey, nevertheless, wasn’t nearly successful.
It was concerning 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 quite a lot of comedy motion pictures, 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 in addition at these moments in resort rooms, the place the sound of a bottle cap hitting the wall did little to disturb others.