We pick things up here, as there appears to have been some transmission errors earlier on. Hikaru is struggling here with the White pieces, with Ding's very dangerous queenside passer being the key difference maker.
There was no real need for Ding to give up his flank pawn. Suddenly, it's Hikaru with the better chances!
It's going to be a real struggle for Ding to avoid losing his passed pawn. At that point, Hikaru is going to have great winning chances.
Ding blunders, but it's not an easy tactic to spot...
The point is that after bishop takes pawn and bishop takes bishop, Hikaru would have a knight jump forking the rook and bishop!
Hikaru misses the crunching tactic, but still has a tidy edge here.
Ding has fought back bravely. He's got serious chances to hold a draw here, in spite of being a pawn down.
A nasty defeat for Ding Liren, who for the most part defended like a lion (though he did allow victory on a couple of instances in what was a very tricky endgame for him). Still, in this no-increment format, the clock takes on a heightened importance. And so Hikaru will not be too concerned about the way in which he got his win, but just relieved that he's on the scoreboard as early as game 1!