Ding Liren’s incredible 28-game April marathon has seen him not only complete the 30 games he needed to be eligible for the Candidates Tournament, but also taken him above Alireza Firouzja into the world no. 2 spot on the May 2022 FIDE rating list. Richard Rapport is up to a career-high world no. 5, Sam Sevian has entered the 2700 club, while Gukesh, Hans Niemann, Alan Pichot, Jules Moussard and Amin Tabatabaei all entered the Top 100 for the first time.

Ma Qun, one of Ding Liren's opponents in the 2nd Chinese Asian Games qualifier, picked up 21 rating points in April 

The official May 2022 FIDE rating list has been published, with the following Top 100.

Ding Liren has overtaken Alireza Firouzja as world no. 2 after qualifiers for the Asian Games in September, and a match against Wei Yi, were organised just in time for Ding to play the required number of games to be eligible for the FIDE Candidates Tournament.

Ding Liren will take the spot vacated when Sergey Karjakin was banned from chess for six months over his enthusiastic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — unless Sergey wins an appeal, when hard questions will be asked about what to do next. If Ding does play he’ll start with White against Ian Nepomniachtchi on June 17th in Madrid. Here are the full pairings:

Among the other players in the Candidates, Fabiano Caruana has edged up to world no. 4 after beating Levon Aronian in the final of the American Cup — Levon had a tough month in classical chess, losing 20 rating points after also losing games to Nakamura, Oparin, Robson and Dominguez. In the same event 21-year-old Sam Sevian made it into the 2700 club for the 1st time after beating Wesley So.

The two Candidates qualifiers from the FIDE Grand Prix stand out, with Richard Rapport up to a career-best world no. 5, while Hikaru Nakamura is just 1 point short of a return to the Top 10.

The biggest points gain in the Top 100 was 26 Elo for Matthias Bluebaum, who won the European Championship and also picked up some more from the Austrian League.  

Five players broke into the Top 100 for the first time: Alan Pichot, Jules Moussard, Amin Tabatabaei, Hans Niemann…

…and 15-year-old Indian prodigy Gukesh.

Gukesh, who climbed to 2659 and world no. 81, has now gained over 20 points for two lists in a row. In April he finished runner-up in the Reykjavik Open and won two Spanish Opens in a row.

The reward? A place for the 15-year-old on the Indian B Team for the 2022 Olympiad — as hosts, India can enter two teams in both the Open and Women’s sections.

The Indian junior to make the top team is 18-year-old Arjun Erigaisi, who has stunned the chess world in the last year by coming from seemingly nowhere to look completely at home in elite company. At 2675 he’s no. 3 on the official list of the world’s top juniors — and will be in action this week in the TePe Sigeman tournament — though German no. 1 Vincent Keymer has edged ahead on the live list, after a good weekend in the German League.

Nihal Sarin, who beat Mamedyarov…

…and Kiril Shevchenko, who found a beautiful finish against his Ukrainian colleague Andrei Volokitin…

…also had great weekends. Gukesh of course isn’t resting, but has started with 3.5/4 in the 1st Chessable Sunway Formentera Festival.