4.5/7 at December's Keres Memorial Rapid, a point behind Jan Timman. At the Rapid World Cup in March 2001 Svidler was eliminated at the group stage, finishing fourth in Group A, qualified from the group stage of the Viktor Korchnoi 70th Anniversary Tournament but was knocked out in the quarter finals by Piket. He came 11th with 8.5/11 in the Ordix Open, second at Biel, half a point behind Korchnoi, second at Moscow's Lightning event, competed in the China-Russia Summit and won team silver and board one bronze at the World Team Championship. Svidler reached the semifinals of the World Championship 2002, after defeating along the way Alejandro Hoffman, Sarunas Sulkis, Vadim Milov, Michael Adams and Boris Gelfand. He was eliminated by eventual winner Ruslan Ponomariov after losing the third game. After Svidler played in the World Cup (a rapid knockout event) and Eurotel Knockout, an open letter was published with Svidler's signature decrying the proposed "Prague Agreement" in which it argued "most of the top chess professionals will have no opportunity to take part in the World Championship until 2005" and called for the establishment of a Grandmasters' Committee as previously agreed. He then competed at the Moscow (rapid) Grand Prix, tied for second at the Ordix Open, won the Chess960 section and won a two-game handicap match against Junior 7 and Eckhard Freise, and tied for third at the Moscow Blitz Championship. In the "Match of the New Century" between Russia and Rest of the World he scored 5/9, losing to Anand and Teimour Radjabov, He took in a tied Moscow-Saint Petersburg match before competing in the Chess Olympiad scoring 6/9 for team gold. He tied for second, half a point behind Igor Khenkin, at Santo Domingo in December with 7/9. In January 2003, Svidler finished second behind Giovanni Vescovi with 7.5/11 at the Bermuda A Group before tying for first at Aeroflot, the invitation to Dortmund going to tiebreak winner Victor Bologan. He won the 4th Karpov tournament in Poikovsky on tiebreak with Joel Lautier with 6/9. He defeated Konstantin Chernyshov 2.5-1.5 in a standard match and 3-1 in a rapid match in Voronezh. Svidler's surge in form saw him climb to 8th place in the FIDE rankings. At the Mainz Chess Classic in August, he won an eight-game Chess960 match against Peter Leko 4.5-3.5. Svidler claimed his fourth Russian Championship in September on tiebreak over Morozevich,