While physicality, technique and endurance are key components for any top-level sportsperson, the ability to think, adapt and outwit opponents is equally important.
Former Barcelona manager Quique Setien was drawn to chess because of its rules, positions and tactics.
“Chess and football are similar, the pieces are connected to attack and defence. It is vital to dominate the centre of the board,” he explained.
Compatriot Alcaraz also said it benefits his game, in a 2018 interview with Vogue magazine, saying: “You have to have intuition about where the other player is going to send the ball, you have to move ahead of time, and try to do something that will make him uncomfortable. So I play it [chess] a lot.”
Pein believes the benefits for sportspeople are twofold.
“A lot of them find it a very good way to switch off, but Mohamed Salah has said that it helps him with his football,” he told BBC Sport.
“I used to teach Boris Becker and he said that it helped him sometimes plan and think a bit more strategically in his tennis. When he started to coach [Novak] Djokovic, I noticed that the two of them used to play quite regularly.
“It is the thinking ahead and trying to identify critical moments [that are important] because in chess you have to remain calm and if you let emotions come into it, you are done for.”
The competitive nature of chess is also appealing to athletes used to the cut and thrust of elite-level competition.
“It’s attractive to people because it is in a game form,” Emil Sutovsky, chief executive officer of the International Chess Federation (Fide), tells BBC Sport.
“If you are a chess player, you are competing. Chess embodies this mixture of strategical thinking and concrete decisions, like taking a decision on every step of every move and that resembles life, a career and a sport.
“I recall Carlos Alcaraz mentioning it several times that he plays chess and it helps him to plan out his play during tennis matches.
“Professional athletes appreciate chess because they are very competitive by their very nature, and chess is about as competitive as it gets,” he adds.
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