Chess-rk.ru

One of the members of the national team of Azerbaijan Rauf Mamedov believes that the main favorite in the upcoming Ningbo World Team Championship is Russia. The grandmaster mentioned this in the interview to 1news.az.

«The Russian national team is a favorite always and everywhere. I suppose that the second contender for the victory is China. Native walls, climate, time zone will help the host country. To some extent I consider the Chinese team even more dangerous than Russian tem. Our team is the next contender followed by the Ukraine, Armenia, Hungary».

Mamedov does not believe that the absence of Vladimir Kramnik is a loss for the Russian team.

«The absence of Nakamura and Gelfand will noticeably affect the strength of the U.S. and Israeli teams. Without Ponomariov the Ukrainian team will also be weaker. As for Anand, the Indian team won the third place without him. Even without these players the level of the World Championship will be quite high» – stated Mamedov.