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First Post
19-07-2025
- Sport
- First Post
'Historic moment in Indian Chess': Divya, Humpy, Harika and Vaishali hailed for incredible run at Women's World Cup
Divya Deshmukh stunned Chinese second seed Zhu Jiner as all four Indians won their respective fourth-round matches to advance to the quarter-finals of the FIDE Women's World Cup in Batumi, Georgia. read more It was an incredible day for the Indian contingent at the FIDE Women's World Cup in Batumi, Georgia with all four Indians – Grandmasters Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli and R Vaishali and International Master Divya Deshmukh – winning their fourth-round clashes on Friday. Not only does that boost the chances of an Indian winning the third edition of the prestigious competition, which is set to conclude on 29 July, it also increases the likelihood of Indian participation at next year's Candidates Tournament. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Women's World Cup, after all, offers three slots for Candidates – the qualification tournament to decide the challenge to the reigning world champion. And despite an all-Indian showdown between Divya and Harika in the quarters, the possibility of Indians finishing in the top three and securing their place in the Candidates remains alive for now. The tournament, meanwhile, has witnessed some incredible results. Earlier in the second round, it was IM Vantika Agrawal triumphing over GM Anna Ushenina, a former women's world champion, in the second round. And in Round 4, Divya defeated Chinese second seed Zhu Jiner, ranked 12 places above her on the latest FIDE ratings, in the tie-breaks after both players finished level at the end of the Classical games. Senior GMs Humpy and Harika defeated Alexandra Kosteniuk and Kateryna Lagno respectively while Vaishali triumphed over Kazakhstani Woman Grandmaster Meruert Kamalidenova. Indian chess president and others react to superb performance in Batumi Their heroics was celebrated by the chess community on social media with All India Chess Federation president Nitin Narang among those congratulating the quartet. Here are select reactions: A wonderful day for Indian chess as our three stars Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli and Divya Deshmukh have reached the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup after winning their tense tie breaker matches. Vaishali will aim to join them with another round of tie breaker games… — Nitin Narang (@narangnitin) July 18, 2025 CAREER-DEFINING MOMENT!!!!!! 🤩 Divya Deshmukh knocks out No. 2 seed GM Zhu Jiner and is through to the quarter-finals!!!!!!!! 🇮🇳🥳🥳🥳🥳 📷: Anna Shtourman#chess #womeninchess #FIDEWorldCup — Women's Chess Coverage (@OnTheQueenside) July 18, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Divya Deshmukh defeats hundred points higher rated Zhu Jiner of China to reach the quarterfinals of Chess Women's World Cup. This is what a hard-working youngster with correct priorities and minimal distractions can do!@DivyaDeshmukh05 — Abhinav Mishra (@abhinav_omkar) July 18, 2025 A historic moment in Indian Chess! GM Koneru Humpy, GM Harika Dronavalli, GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, and IM Divya Deshmukh - all 4 of them played the tiebreaks in the Pre-QFs, and won their matches to enter Quarter finals of FIDE Women's World Cup 2025! Photos: Anna Shtourman — Achyutha (@achyutha) July 18, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD IM Divya Deshmukh defeated her nemesis GM Zhu Jiner in the tiebreaks of the 4th round in the Women's World Cup to reach the QF 🔥 Finishing top-3 will get her a place at Women's Candidates, reaching the final will give her a GM norm & winning the title will earn her the GM title — Shaili (@shailivation) July 18, 2025 The quarter-finals will get underway on Saturday and will conclude with the tie-breaks on Monday. Besides the Divya-Harika face-off, Humpy and Vaishali will be up against Chinese opponents – facing Song Yuxin and Tan Zhongyi respectively. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
First Post
18-07-2025
- Sport
- First Post
Watch: IM Divya Deshmukh's epic reaction after upsetting Chinese GM Zhu Jiner in the pre-quarterfinals of the FIDE Women's World Cup
IM Divya Deshmukh's immediate reaction after beating Chinese GM Zhu Jiner was captured on camera. Deshmukh could not help but get overwhelmed with emotions. read more On Friday, India's Divya Deshmukh defeated Chinese GM Zhu Jiner to qualify for the FIDE Women's World Cup quarter-finals. The 19-year-old Divya got the better of Zhu in Game 1 of the 25+10 Rapid tiebreaks and drew Game 2 to emerge victorious in the match. Deshmukh's victory comes after a setback on Thursday, when she lost her second game with black pieces to Zhu. She defeated the World No.6 from China with pieces a day before. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Since it was a massive upset in the tournament, Divya couldn't help but let the victory emotions get the better of her. Her immediate reaction was captured on camera, and by the looks of it, it's apparent that the victory was overwhelming for her, too. 🇮🇳 Divya Deshmukh (2463) defeats 🇨🇳 Zhu Jiner (2533) in Round 4 of the FIDE Women's World Cup!#FIDEWorldCup @DivyaDeshmukh05 — International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 18, 2025 Divya will face compatriot Harika Dronavalli in the semi-final of the tournament. Also Read | R Praggnanandhaa forces Magnus Carlsen to resign: How Indian Grandmaster outwitted world No.1 in 39 moves Day of elation for India as all four Indians made it to the quarter-finals Indian women were on a roll in the FIDE Women's World Cup on Friday. Following Divya Deshmukh's emphatic win over Chinese Zhu Jiner, veteran GM Koneru Humpy also overwhelmed her opponent, Switzerland's Alexandra Kosteniuk, in the tiebreakers to advance to the quarter-finals. As the day progressed, Harika Dronavalli and R. Vaishali also defeated their respective opponents to make it four out of four for India. With four of the eight quarter-finalists being Indians, the probability of an Indian reaching the final and clinching the World Cup trophy is quite high. It must be noted that the FIDE Women's World Cup offers three spots to the FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament, which is set to take place in the first half of 2026.
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First Post
18-07-2025
- Sport
- First Post
Divya Deshmukh defeats Zhu Jiner, qualifies for FIDE Women's World Cup quarterfinals
India's Divya Deshmukh defeated Chinese GM Zhu Jiner to qualify for the FIDE Women's World Cup quarterfinals, making the difference in the tiebreaks. read more On Friday, India's Divya Deshmukh defeated Chinese GM Zhu Jiner to qualify for the FIDE Women's World Cup quarterfinals. The 19-year-old Divya got the better of Zhu in Game 1 of the 25+10 Rapid tiebreaks and drew Game 2 to emerge victorious in the match. Deshmukh's victory come after a setback on Thursday, when she lost her second game with black pieces to Zhu. She defeated the world No. 6 from China with pieces a day before. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 🇮🇳 Divya Deshmukh (2463) defeats 🇨🇳 Zhu Jiner (2533) in Round 4 of the FIDE Women's World Cup!#FIDEWorldCup @DivyaDeshmukh05 — International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 18, 2025 Delight for GM Koneru Humpy as well Also sealing her place in the World Cup quarter-finals on Friday was GM Koneru Humpy, who defeated GM Alexander Kosteniuk. Both their classical games ended in a draw, with Humpy defeating Kosteniuk in Game 1 of the 15+10 Rapid tiebreaks and holding her to a draw in Game 2 to win the match. Also Read | FIDE Women's World Cup: Divya Deshmukh loses to Zhu Jiner as all 4 Indians reach tiebreaks in pre-quarterfinals The FIDE Women's World Cup uses a head-to-head knockout format. Players compete in two classical games (one with white, one with black). If there's no winner after these two games, tiebreaks with progressively shorter time controls decide the winner. Classical games span two days; tiebreaks occur on the third day. More to follow
Indian Express
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Indian Express
FIDE Women's World Cup: Divya Deshmukh loses Game 2 to Zhu Jiner as all 4 Indians head to tiebreak battles
In Batumi, all four Indian players will fight it out in the faster-time control tiebreaks in the FIDE Women's World Cup on Friday after Divya Deshmukh lost her second game with black pieces to Zhu Jiner after defeating the world no 6 from China with white pieces a day previously. Thursday's results meant that four of the eight quarter-finalists were decided while the four Indians in contention are all battling for the remaining four spots. Besides Divya, Koneru Humpy will take on Alexandra Kosteniuk (originally Russian but now representing Switzerland); Harika Dronavalli will battle Russia's Kateryna Lagno and Vaishali Rameshbabu will fight against Kazakhstan's Kamalidenova Meruert. The tournament format for the FIDE Women's World Cup is such that all games are played in a head-to-head elimination format over two classical games with players playing once each with white and black pieces. If after two classical games there is no clear winner, the battle enters tiebreaks, where the time control keeps reducing until there is a winner. While the two classical games are played over two days, the tiebreaks happen on the third day. At first, both players will play best-of-two games in the 15 minutes (+10 seconds increment per move, popularly called 15+10) format. If that also cannot separate the two players, the time gets reduced to 10 minutes (+10 seconds increment per move, called 10+10). Once again there will be two games. If even this cannot provide a winner, the time trickles down to five minutes + three seconds (5+3). After this point, if players are still deadlocked, the game enters chess' equivalent of a sudden death: a winner-takes-all single game of three minutes + 2 seconds. This 3+2 game will be played until there's a winner. Three Chinese players, Lei Tingjie, Tan Zhongyi and Song Yuxin, find themselves in the quarter-finals along with Georgia's Nana Dzagnidze. The FIDE Women's World Cup offers the top three finishers a spot at next year's Women's Candidates tournament, which is the final step towards challenging the reigning women's world champion.
Indian Express
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Indian Express
Divya Deshmukh, with edgy, exuberant attacking style, raises hope that India has next big thing in women's chess
While anything halfway cerebral in physical sport gets dubbed a move 'like chess', Divya Deshmukh, the actual chess ace, has been bringing Novak Djokovic's combative counterpunches to her chess boards. 'It's just the way Djokovic plays and wins,' Divya said last week, after pulling a third place medal at Pune 's Women's Grand Prix with a clutch of wins, even as the 19-year-old firebrand looks to score her GM norms in the coming months. Divya's is hardly a generation that sets a lot of store on sporting idols when chasing greatness herself. Asked two years back which chess player she looked up to, she nonchalantly said she was inspired by many like Vishy Anand, but she's never had a 'perfect role model' whose career she wanted to mimic. 'No one that makes me feel this is where I want to be,' she had said. So it's not so much about Djoker posters on walls and idly charging into GOAT debates in tennis' fan wars. She was intrigued by the sport enough to pick a racquet and start playing herself. 'I've just begun playing tennis recently,' she would say. The last one year has been a roller coaster, not unlike the tournament in Pune where she was stringing together wins against Nurgyul Salimova, R Vaishali, Melia Salome and Batkhuyag Munguntuul on good days, and being yanked back to the ground on others, like by the Chinese eventual second-placed Zhu Jiner. Calculated risks and catching opponents off guard has underpinned Divya's wins last season. Just to get a sense of what sort of 2024 she had, look at her rating gains of 70 rating points in the 12 months of 2024 — by contrast, Aravindh Chitambaram rose 64 points, Arjun grew by 63, and World Champion Gukesh added 52 to his tally. Even as Koneru Humpy persists with her attempts at the world champion's crown, there's more than just her fans who reckon she has the right attitude to one day fight for the elusive women's world title. The tournament organisation head GM Abhijit Kunte explained that leap of belief. 'She's easily our best bet for a world champion. She's already been a World junior champion, and won an Olympiad gold with India. She's ticking all the boxes and competing amongst the world elite. The way she's playing, it's a trajectory like Viswanathan Anand's. Within two years of winning the junior world crown, Anand was fighting the elite,' he says. Ask Divya about these lofty expectations, and she slays the thought with enough confidence and detachment. 'People will always have expectations. I care about mine,' she says. She hadn't been following the daily standings deliberately, she says, 'Pune tournament was a roller-coaster. I liked some of my attacking wins, especially against Munguntuul. But losses like the one to Zhu Jiner will haunt.' She's at an ELO rating of 2460 this month, having crossed 2500 briefly last November. But Divya remains a fiery IM, not unafraid to take down established GMs, even as she chases her norms in a season that has offered her a glimpse of how cutthroat elite chess can get. 'I didn't perform to the best of my ability and was up against a lot of strong players last year. Some very rocky matches,' Divya would say, though she's happy and comfortable with her edgy, exuberant attacking style. Even as the Chinese continue to dominate, she will most likely form the next generation of buccaneer piece-movers, with Russian Polina Shuvalova, who play risky, fighting chess and are tactically and positionally versatile. 'Attacking chess is just something inbuilt. Since my age-category days, I always go for gold. It's like permanent 'strike' mode,' she says. 'I play chess because I enjoy it. And that has the highest highs and lowest lows both,' she adds. Pune had been a happy hunting ground for Divya, for it is in this western Maharashtra city that the eastern Maharashtra ace (she's from Warna, near Nagpur) won her first nationals. Coach Rahul Joshi had helped the family navigate everything from which tournaments to play in, and what would be the best pathways, as well as juggling playing finances. For her mother, Dr Namrata Deshmukh, chess wasn't something her younger daughter just lightly waded into. A gynaec, Dr Namrata, gave up on her medical practice largely to focus on Divya's dreams on the chequered squares, even as the elder daughter played a spot of badminton. Divya's father played chess, but so did Dr Durgaprasad Sharma, Namrata's grandfather, whose Saturday routines of a chess game with social justice fighter Vinoba Bhave, formed the stuff of stories the whole family listened to. 'We are from a small town, Warna. And frankly we didn't even know chess had formal competitions initially,' the mother says. 'In the beginning as doctors it was unimaginable as parents that our daughter was not going to school, not studying just to play chess. She was always dedicated, but it's a huge risk. And after a point, she didn't want to come out of it (chess world),' she adds. Was it a sacrifice, giving up on a practice? 'Cant call it that, as if it's a burden. She was happy and interested in chess, so we had to support it. I saw it as my duty since she was performing well. But yes, I feel bad about ignoring the older one.' Chess has made Divya quieter and wiser beyond her years, though she still loves to sing and dance at home with exuberance, Dr Namrata says. 'The more she travels, the more she likes home food too. Anything chicken,' she says. Tennis — via Djokovic's sliding on clay — is Divya's new habit-in-the-making. R&B music of Weeknd, the singer known for his introspective lyrics, is an old fix. The world has its own thoughts on timelines that might see Divya fight one day for the world title. 'I have my own,' she says, knowing the steep ascent on this mountain is a jagged, terribly rocky face, teeming with some massive names. She's just trying to do a Djoker in chess — stomp through in the Federer-Nadal world.
