Unlikely Roger Federer connection in new 18-year-old World Chess Champion Gukesh's internet-breaking celebration

Gukesh Dommaraju wore a Roger Federer-branded shirt during his Chess World Championship victory over Ding Liren. With his triumph on Thursday (December 12), the 18-year-old became the youngest world champion in chess history.

The 2024 Chess World Championship match between the previous champion, Liren, and his challenger, Dommaraju, started close, as both players were tied 5-5 in the first ten games. The Indian teen came into his own from the 11th game onwards, winning two of the next four matches to seal the title by a scoreline of 7½-6½.

Gukesh's win marks a watershed moment for not only the Indian chess contingent but the entire country as well. The newly minted Chess World Champion drew a lot of engagement on X (formerly Twitter). The fact that he wore a shirt with Roger Federer's legendary RF logo during the 14th and final match is a welcome surprise for his fans who also enjoy tennis.

Below is the tweet where Gukesh Dommaraju can be seen wearing a Roger Federer black shirt under his grey suit:

Gukesh overcoming the more-experienced Ding in classical chess elicited positive reactions from his peers, athletes from other sports, and even public figures such as the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai. Modi and Pichai's congratulatory posts for their fellow Indian, in particular, amassed 208k and 61k likes on X (formerly Twitter), respectively.

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"Roger Federer got hooked" - When Ivan Ljubicic revealed the Swiss maestro's love for chess

The Swiss maestro waves during an exhibition at Shanghai Masters 2024

In November 2022, Roger Federer's former coach Ivan Ljubicic talked about how obsessed the 20-time Major winner is with chess. By his admission, the Swiss would play the bullet format during his free time. The Croat also disclosed that he had influenced his ward taking to the game.

"He likes to play kind of bullets to kill time and distract himself. I know more (than Roger) or less but I prefer not to talk about it," Ivan Ljubicic said during his exhibition match against FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky. "He got hooked by seeing how fanatic I was about it. He had the basics and I honestly don't know if he still does it because we haven't spent a lot of time together in 14 months since he had surgery but yeah he also knows the general ideas of what's happening in the chess world."

Federer is one of the greatest tennis players of all time with 20 Majors and 310 weeks as the World No. 1. He hung up his racquet at the 2022 Laver Cup at the age of 41.