For the Bilbao Chess Masters Final 2010, the qualifiers were Magnus Carlsen (winner of the 2009 Pearl Spring, 2010 Corus and 2010 Bazna King tournaments) and Veselin Topalov (winner of 2010 Linares). Because the M-Tel Masters was cancelled in 2010 due to the World Chess Championship 2010, the winner of the World Chess Championship, Viswanathan Anand was named an automatic qualifier. After Topalov withdrew from the final, the remaining two places were decided during a preliminary tournament in China in early September involving Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian (the highest two rated players not having already qualified for the final), Alexei Shirov (nominee of host nation Spain) and Wang Hao (nominee of host nation China). Shirov and Kramnik qualified for the final. The final was the strongest tournament (by rating) in chess history, and it was won by Kramnik, followed by Anand, Carlsen and Shirov.