The young Uzbek’s win in Cyprus comes at the end of a fortnight of complete dominance, winning unbeaten, with the highest number of wins in a Candidates tournament in the current format. It’s fair to say that this result seemed imminent barely halfway through the tournament.

The Barcelona fan and Counter-Strike junkie crushed the competition – like a fire-breathing, building-stomping Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo. Sindarov watched the rest of the field fumble, doubt themselves, and count themselves out of contention for first place, while he still found time to play online bullet during the tournament.

“I feel really happy,” he said, breaking into a smile, his eyes disappearing. “I was lucky in my first-round game against Andrey (Esipenko). After that game, the tournament completely changed for me. Without luck, you cannot win a tournament like this.”

Sindarov said he was “shocked” to see visuals from Uzbekistan and people following his journey in the Candidates. “I saw billboards and people following the rounds. It was shared in my family chat. I hope I’ve been able to make people of my country happy.” With this performance Sindarov has now shot up to world No 5 in the live ratings.

Heading into Tuesday’s penultimate round with the Black pieces, he held a two-point lead and needed only a draw to confirm his challenger spot. Dressed in a dark business suit with neatly side-swept hair, Sindarov glanced at his opponent, Anish Giri, as the moves were repeated. A nod, a handshake – and he was gone, darting away from the board, the tournament already his with a round to spare.

On game days, Sindarov has been seen striding into the playing venue with his friend and team member Mukhiddin Madaminov, exchanging daps before he goes on to light the board on fire. He revealed that other than Madaminov and coach Roman Vidonyak he has two other members on his team, who have been assisting him remotely.

So complete was Sindarov’s dominance, that it had world no 3 Fabiano Caruana make peace with not winning the tournament on his sixth appearance, early. “The tournament clearly separated once I lost the individual game against Javokhir,” the pre-tournament favourite said. “Looking at how strong he’s been playing, I don’t feel like anything I could have done would really give me a serious chance to fight for first.”

Sindarov entered the tournament as a dark horse – young, hungry and with major recent wins, such as the World Cup, to back his potential. That he would steamroll through the field, while the rest struggled to put up a semblance of a fight, was probably not on anyone’s bingo card.

“Sindarov has played better than every other player combined – no one else has even been close,” World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura offered. It’s an apt summation. Nakamura’s trip to Cyprus turned into a vacation early. He’s had just one win in the tournament – against Caruana.

It’s been a hugely disappointing performance by R Praggnanandhaa, the lone Indian player in the open section. He managed to win just one game in 13 rounds and barely showed any glimpses of the player he’s known to be.

In contrast to the Open section, the battle in the Women’s Candidates is far from over. Tuesday saw some swings and collapses and it’s now a two-way tie at the top between Vaishali R and Bibisara Assaubayeva, with one round remaining.

Vaishali, playing White, and a shaky former women’s world champion Tan Zhongyi – who has zero wins in this year’s tournament – went from being worse to holding the game to a draw to stay in first place. Black’s knights looked imposing, while White’s bishop was stranded and gasped for air on the c7 square and Tan seemed to hold the advantage. The Chinese Grandmaster could have held on to her edge by capturing White’s a6-pawn with her Queen, but she let it slip, much to Vaishali’s relief and the game ended in a three-fold repetition.

Uzbekistan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva caught up with Vaishali with a win over Anna Muzychuk. The 24-year-old Indian’s co-leader heading into Tuesday’s games, top seed Zhu Jiner, greedy to win at all costs, over-extended, blundered, and lost to Aleksandra Goryachkina, falling half a point behind the leaders.

Vaishali will play with the White pieces against Kateryna Lagno – who she defeated in their earlier face-off in this tournament – on Wednesday. While Lagno will be heading into the final round on the back of a win against Divya Deshmukh in Round 13. A lot will ride on the final round and Vaishali will want to see this through with crafty play, calm nerves and a touch of luck.