Picture Credit: X
Hans Niemann, the American Grandmaster (GM), withdrew his name less than 48 hours before the start of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 event in Paris due to personal reasons. With that, the 21-year-old became the second player after GM Alireza Firouzja of France within days to drop out of the tournament, and his replacement is now named by Freestyle Chess, who is going to be GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov from Uzbekistan.
The German organisers of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 confirmed the development about Hans Niemann’s withdrawal from the Paris tournament on Saturday, April 5. With the sudden departure of the American GM from the tournament, the fans will have to wait longer to see him take on GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who is also the co-founder of the aforementioned tour, since their rivalry is filled with a lot of controversy.
Hans Niemann looked forward to playing Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 event in Paris recently
Hans Niemann had spoken about wanting to compete in the Paris event on Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 nearly a couple of months ago. He had written on his official X account back then, “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to compete in the Freestyle Paris edition. Winning the Grenke Open last year was an incredible experience, and I am eager to return to the Freestyle/Grenke Open. No matter what opportunities come my way, I will continue to let my chess speak for itself. Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey.”
In his statement to Chess.com, Jan Henric Buettner, the CEO of Freestyle Chess, was quoted as saying, “We are obviously incredibly disappointed to hear about Niemann's withdrawal from this event. But we are very happy to have found an incredible replacement with Nodirbek Abdusattorov on very short notice.” Moreover, before his withdrawal from the 12-player Paris event on the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025, the fans were quite excited to see Hans Niemann play, but it won’t be the case now.
