Born in 1994, Kovalev won the Belarusian Junior Chess Championship in 2009, 2011 and 2012. He represented Belarus at the European Youth Chess Championship and World Youth Chess Championship, in which he won two medals: silver at the 2008 European U14 Chess Championship and bronze at the 2010 European U16 Chess Championship.
He has also played for Belarus in two European Team Chess Championships:[6] in 2013, he scored 3/8 (+2–4=2) on third board at the 19th European Team Chess Championship in Warsaw; in 2017, he scored 4½/8 (+3–2=3) on second board at the 21st European Team Chess Championship in Hersonissos.
In February 2018, Kovalev competed in the Aeroflot Open. He finished first, half a point ahead of his nearest competitors,[8] with a score of 7/9 (+5–0=4).[9] He thus qualified for the 46th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting in July, where he placed third with a score of 4/7 (+1–0=6).[10]
In January 2019, he competed in the Tata Steel Challengers. He scored 10/13 (+7–0=6) to take first place, one-and-a-half points ahead of Andrey Esipenko, Benjámin Gledura and Maksim Chigaev, who all tied for second.[11] By winning the Challengers he qualified for the 2020 Tata Steel Masters tournament, in which he scored 4/13 (+1–6=6).[12]
As of September2023,[update] Kovalev does not hold a national chess federation membership. Instead, his federation is listed as "FIDE",[13] and he entered the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021 with this affiliation.
