The last semifinalist of the World Cup — Vassily Ivanchuk — shared his impressions on the hard battle with Teimour Radjabov and told us what’s expecting him in the future.

 — I have already spoken about the 1^st classical game at the previous press-conference, so I will not repeat myself. In the second game my opponent came up with a very interesting sacrifice of the piece. I am not sure whether it is 100 percent correct, but in any case I did not manage to cope with it and I lost the game.

The 1^st game of tie-breaks was very difficult: my opponent had an advantage and I had to fight for a draw. Luckily, I managed to build up the defense and then not to mix up anything in the endgame with bishop against a rook without pawns. And in the 2^nd game I could overplay my opponent in a better endgame.

— Was it hard for you to concentrate on tie-breaks after the defeat?  — What to do, I did not really have any choice.

— The World Cup semifinals remind us the World Championship 2001 when Svidler was playing against Ponomariov and you faced Anand. The only difference is that today your opponent is Grischuk. What can you say about him?  — I played a lot with him. I do not even remember what score we have, I believe, approximately equal. During our latest match I guess I managed to overplay him in the Monaco tournament.