Chess prodigy R. Praggnanandhaa on Friday said he always knew he wanted to become like five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.
"I have been a huge fan of Anand and have been drawing inspiration from him since the time I started playing chess," Asian Youth Championship Winner Praggnanandhaa said on 'Mind Masters by MFORE'.
"I met him in 2012 right after he returned to India after winning the world championship where my school had taken us to meet him.
"It was the moment when I knew I wanted to become like him. A month later, I was representing India at the Asian Youth Championship. I ended up winning the title post which 5 of us from Chennai won the world youth championships and got to meet him again.
"I was lucky to play a game against him at Tata Steel India. I got to learn a lot from him. He's a huge inspiration," added the 14-year old.
Star Sports in partnership with MFORE has launched a new series Mind Masters by MFORE to highlight the importance and necessity of mental strength and conditioning in sports.
In the recent episode, five-time World Chess Champion Anand joined host and former India cricketer S. Badrinath to share his experiences and talk about the importance of mind skills training and how it helped him as a chess player.
Recently, India leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal said his idol was Anand when he used to play chess.
"I'm glad Anand chose me as his favourite player, when I used to play chess, he was my idol. I played my first nationals of chess in 1998 and at that time I was playing cricket as well," he had said.
"You can't play both sports at the same time. For chess, you need 10 - 12 hours of training and then 6 - 8 hours for cricket was getting very difficult. So, when I came back from the World Cup, I told my father I will focus only on cricket."
( With inputs from IANS )