Karthikeyan Murali becomes third Indian player to beat World number one Magnus Carlsen

24-year-old Indian player Karthikeyan Murali has created history by defeating Magnus Carlsen in the classical chess tournament being played in Qatar Masters.

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Once again the glory of an Indian player was seen in the classical chess format. World number one chess player Magnus Carlsen often faces competition from Indian players. A few days ago, he had to face a tough competition from Indian player Rameshbabu Pragyanand, although Magnus won the match eventually.

But this time Magnus not only faced a tough competition from the Indian player but the number 1 chess player also had to face defeat. After that, Karthikeyan Murali has become the third Indian player to defeat Carlsen. Karthikeyan's victory all but dashed the Norwegian's hopes of repeating his title win at the tournament in 2015.

Karthikeyan Murali's victory came in the seventh round of the tournament, where he skillfully used the black pieces. With this important win, he joins the ranks of other prominent players like SL Narayan, Javokhir Sindarov, David Paravyan, Arjun Erigaisi and Nodirbek Yakubboev.

The win helped Karthikeyan Murali to climb up 5.5 points after seven matches and be in a six-way lead for the title with just two rounds left in the competition. What makes this victory even sweeter is the fact that this was the first-time Karthikeyan went up against Carlsen in any format of the game.

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Earlier, Karthikeyan Murali's match in the sixth round of the tournament was drawn against Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran. At the same time, Karthikeyan Murali has now become the third Indian chess player to defeat Magnus Carlsen in the classical game after Harikrishna, who defeated the Norwegian in 2005, and Viswanathan Anand, the only other player from the country to have defeated Carlsen.

Born in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, Karthikeyan Murali was fond of playing chess since childhood, due to which he learned to play chess at the age of just 5 years. Karthikeyan Murali was given the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in the year 2015. He has also won the National Championship twice. Apart from this, Murali has won many big tournaments in the age group itself.