Can French Defence considered good ? Based on Ding Liren success over Gukesh in WTC.

Based on Ding Liren's recent success against Gukesh Dommaraju by using the French Defense in the World Chess Championship.Can it be considered a good choice?

it is good but people don’t play it because it is very complicated for black

ding had success because he has played it thousands of times & knows the lines very well letting him equalize with white

Answer - YES.

The French Defense is a strong and flexible response to 1. e4, as long as you understand the underlying principles behind it. After 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5, black intends to fix, undermine, and ultimately destroy the d4 pawn. Once that pawn falls, white will have too many weaknesses to hold the position together.

Game 1 of the championship match illustrates this clearly. The game was effectively over at move 12 (12. ..cxd4), because Gukesh could not recapture with the c-pawn for tactical reasons. This left him two central weaknesses, the now-unsupported e5 pawn, and the c3 pawn, which was backwards and blockaded on an open file. From there, Ding gradually built up the pressure until the c3 pawn fell, and Gukesh's position collapsed from there.

The French Defense is black sacrificing space in order to obtain the initiative, so it's about counterplay more than equality. Gukesh understood this after losing Game 1. Indeed, this is why we saw the Exchange French (3. exd5 exd5) in Game 5, which gives black immediate equality. It avoids giving black the initiative as seen in the Steinitz, Tarrasch, Advance, Winawer, and Rubinstein Variations (all of which put white on the defensive if played correctly). In Game 13, where the Steinitz Variation was played again, Gukesh made certain to preserve d4 until the center was liquidated completely (and to be fair, even then 27. d5!? was inaccurate).

The French Defense is played poorly at the amateur level because it's often treated similarly to the Caro-Kann (1. e4 c6), which is a more passive defense. The French Defense is an immediate counterattack in the center, and black must keep up the pressure in the center in order to play it effectively.