The opponent of Vugar Gashimov in 1/8 of the finals — Peter Heine Nilsen — does not doubt that the Azeri Grandmaster is the favorite of the tournament.
— Vugar, the match was tense and nervous. What was the reason?
Gashimov: It is all because of my opponent, he was playing brilliantly at some points. In principle all games turned out to be interesting. I think that we played this match on a very high level. But it also turned out that my opponent was the last to make a mistake and I managed to win.
— Peter-Heine, despite today’s game, the tournament was lucky for you. Do you agree with that?
Nielsen: In principle I am satisfied with my performance at the World Cup. But of course I am upset after today’s loss. I was trying my best and even managed to press my opponent at some points. But unfortunately it was not enough…
— What do you think whether your opponent is able to win the World Cup?
Nielsen: One thing I am sure about is that Vugar is one of the favorites of the tournament. He is able to go far. Of course we should take into account other participants as well. But Vugar is one of the favorites of the World Cup and so far he manages to win all his games with White. If he continues like that, he has big chances to win the tournament.
— Vugar, in this moment it is being defined who will be your next opponent? Any preferences?
Gashimov: Truly speaking I don’t think about it. The thing is that it does not matter who will be your next opponent but your performance does.
Official website: http://chess.ugrasport.com
Where’s Peter from?
Peter is from Denmark and he is the longtime second of world champion Vishy anand
Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen was the highest-rated player from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and associated territories) for half a decade until Magnus Carlsen took over that distinction. Apart from being a second for Anand, Nielsen has also worked as a coach/second/sparring partner for Carlsen and as a coach for the Norwegian national team more than once, most recently for the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2010. Here are links to a couple of pics from Norwegian GM Jon Ludvig Hammer’s blog (I can’t make them clickable, but you can copy-paste them into your browser):
http://gmhammer.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/olympiad-preparation/ (Nielsen is seated to the right in the first picture.)
http://gmhammer.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/waffles/ (Nielsen with Carlsen.)
By the way, what a nice picture of Gashimov and Nielsen together at the press conference! And they show a lot of mutual respect in their answers.