FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 The FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 was held in Moscow, Russia. The first six rounds were played between 27 November and 14 December 2001, and the final match started on 16 January and ended on 23 January 2002. The Ukrainian Grandmaster Ruslan Ponomariov, aged 18, won the championship and became the youngest FIDE World Champion. At the time of this championship, the World title was split. The Classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, did not participate, as well as the previous Classical Champion and world's highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov. However, all other strongest players of the
World Chess Championship 2010 tournament eventually won by Indian GM Viswanathan Anand to become the World Champion. Anand subsequently defended his title in a one-off match against Kramnik, the World Chess Championship 2008. The World Chess Championship format then returned to its original form, wherein a match between the current champion and a challenger would decide the World Champion. To choose the challenger, FIDE organized the Chess World Cup 2007. Topalov was compensated for missing the 2007 tournament by getting direct entry to a Challenger Match against the winner of the Chess World Cup. The winner of the Challenger Match would then be the