India, May 18 -- Alireza Firouzja reclined in his shorts on a bed in a hotel room, his right leg propped up on pillows. Across him sat World Championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov as the two played out moves on a chessboard placed on a table between them. An arbiter sat on a chair near the foot of the bed. It was an extraordinary scene from Round 5 of the Grand Chess Tour Super Chess Classic in Bucharest.

According to the organisers, the French-Iranian Grandmaster had suffered an ankle injury after the third round. He did not play his Round 4 game against Fabiano Caruana. "There are certain games where by the end you'll get into a highly neurotic state because of all these turmoils," Grandmaster Anish Giri, Firouzja's Round 3 opponent...