GMTeimour Radjabov

Teimour Radjabov grew up in Baku, the son of a petroleum engineer and an English teacher. He began chess at three and was coached by his father. At twelve, he won the 1999 European Under-Eighteen Championship. He became a grandmaster in 2001, aged fourteen. Two years later, his victory over Garry Kasparov at Linares attracted worldwide attention. He also defeated Viswanathan Anand and Ruslan Ponomariov that year.

Radjabov shared first place at Wijk aan Zee in 2007. His later successes included the Elista and Geneva Grand Prix tournaments. With Azerbaijan, he won European team championships in 2009, 2013 and 2017. He also earned an individual bronze medal at the 2018 Olympiad.

In 2019, Radjabov won the FIDE World Cup, defeating Ding Liren in the final's blitz tiebreaks. He withdrew from the 2020 Candidates because of concerns about the emerging coronavirus pandemic. FIDE subsequently gave him a place in the 2022 Candidates. He finished third in that event. Between those two cycles, he won the online Airthings Masters by beating Levon Aronian in the final.