Armenia’s top grandmaster Levon Aronyan has maintained his fifth rank among the world’s best male chess players in the latest rating released by the game’s international governing body FIDE.

The May 1 FIDE rating for the world’s top 100 players (released every second month) shows no change in the top seven positions, with the top trio including Norway’s 20-year-old Magnus Carlsen (rating 2813), Veselin Topalov (2812) from Bulgaria and Vladimir Kramnik (2790) from Russia. India’s Viswanathan Anand, who is now defending his FIDE world crown against challenger Topalov, is in the fourth position with a rating of 2789, six rating points ahead of the 27-year-old Armenian chess ace. Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov follows Aronyan in the sixth place with a rating of 2763.

The FIDE (www.fide.com) top 100 male players list also includes two other Armenian grandmasters, namely Vladimir Hakobyan (43) and Gabriel Sargsyan (55). Sergey Movsesian representing Slovakia is 25th on the list.

The FIDE top 100 female players list includes three Armenian grandmasters. The highest rank among them is held by Lilit Mkrtchyan (26th; rating 2477), followed by Elina Danielyan (29) and Lilit Galoyan (66). Hungary’s Judit Polgar tops the rankings with a rating of 2682.

In the list of 139 chess nations ranked by the average rating of their top 10 players Armenia is 10th (average rank 2631; has 20 grandmasters and 30 international masters; ‘total titled’ – 73).

The FIDE nations rating list is topped by Russia (2731), followed by Ukraine (2688) and China (2648). Full rankings are available here: http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml

Meanwhile, Armenia’s top chessman Aronyan has indicated that he will not take part in World Chess Championship qualifying matches if Azerbaijan’s capital Baku is picked as their venue.

In a statement issued late last week, Aronyan reacted to comments made by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who said in an interview with the Russian Sport-Express newspaper (April 28, 2010) that he did not rule out the participation of the Armenian player in the Candidates tournament in the Azerbaijani capital.

Aronyan stressed that he has “never agreed and will never agree” to play candidates’ matches in Baku. The Armenian Chess Federation also announced that it had sent an official letter to Ilyumzhinov, FIDE Presidential Board members, the Sport-Express newspaper and other chess periodicals over the matter.

The 2011 World Championship challenger is to be decided in a Candidates Tournament that will bring together eight participants (including Aronyan as Winner of the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2009).

It was reportedly decided at the FIDE Congress last year that the tournament scheduled for 2010/11 would be split into two parts to allow the Armenian player to avoid playing in Azerbaijan.

(Sources: FIDE, armchess.am)