The July 2002 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting acted as the Candidates Tournament to determine the challenger to Kramnik's title. However, not all other top-ranked players were present. World number 1 Garry Kasparov declined his invitation, instead insisting that he deserved a rematch with Kramnik based on his tournament results in 2001. Two others top 10 players — world number 3 and 2000 FIDE World Champion Viswanathan Anand, and world number 8 Vassily Ivanchuk — declined their invitations out of loyalty to the rival FIDE world championship. FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov (and world number 7) also did not participate. Apart from these four players and Kramnik, the competitors were the 7 highest rated players in the world, plus Christopher Lutz (44th in the world in the January 2002 list) as a player from the host country.