Opinion FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025: Divya Deshmukh’s win is a turning point in Indian women’s chess

“Indian chess is just unbelievable!” wrote chess legend Judit Polgar in a post on her X account. Having two Indian women fighting in the finale was a moment that could be an indicator of a seismic shift in the world of women’s chess. After all, this comes on the back of the Indian women’s team claiming the Chess Olympiad gold medal just last year.

China has been a dominant force in women’s chess for decades now. While they have not had a World Cup winner in three editions, their prowess in women’s chess is strongly reflected in women’s world championships, the pinnacle of women’s chess. Six out of the 17 women’s world champions in history have been from China. The first of these was Xie Jun, who became the first-ever women’s chess champion from Asia when she claimed the title in 1991. After claiming the title thrice more, she passed the torch to Zhu Chen and Xu Yuhua. Then came the era of Hou Yifan, who won the title four times starting from 2010. The 15 years since that title from Yifan have seen three women from China claim the women’s world champion’s crown — Tan Zhongyi and Ju Wenjun being the other two. This reign of China on the women’s world champion’s throne since 2010 was only briefly interjected twice.

“Divya’s win is a great thing for India because of the way the country’s players dominated the World Cup. Women’s chess especially was always dominated by Russia and China, two very strong countries,” points out grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, who was the captain of the Indian women’s team at the Olympiad last year where the first blow to China’s dominance was struck by Indian women.

At the Olympiad, a team event, China had sent a second-string team without stars like women’s world champion Ju Wenjun, Tan Zhongyi and Lei Tingjie. At the Women’s World Cup, though, it had one of the strongest contingents, missing only two top stars: World No 1 Hou Yifan, who is semi-retired at this point, and women’s world champion Ju. China’s nine-player contingent was matched in numbers by India’s nine players among the 107 contenders from 46 countries.
“The way India dominated the World Cup, it showed that our players are ready to take on everybody. China cannot take India lightly now, because we have gold and silver medals in the World Cup, we won a silver medal at the Asian Games and we were gold medalists in the Chess Olympiad. Having two India versus China semi-finals shows how stiff the competition between the two countries is,” says Kunte.

What makes the one-two finish by Indian players even more remarkable is that the FIDE Women’s World Cup is the trickiest format in the sport to navigate. It’s a minefield where each round involves one-on-one battles in the two-game mini matches in the classical format. If the two classical games do not yield a winner, the battle enters a third day where there are skirmishes in the rapid format and then blitz if necessary until there’s a winner.

On paper, it should have been an exhausting format for someone like Humpy. And a daunting one for someone as inexperienced as Divya.

But eventually, the grizzled veteran and the tenacious teenager were left standing to fight for the title. Away from the two players too, there are plenty of positives: Be it Woman International Master Priyanka K outlasting Women’s Grandmaster Zsoka Gaal in tense tiebreaks, or I M Vantika Agrawal taking out former women’s world champion Anna Ushenina, or India having more players in the quarter-finals (four) than China (three).

“Our Olympiad team members, Vaishali Rameshbabu and Harika Dronavalli, also made it to the quarter-finals. So if you look at the bench strength of the Indian women’s players in this World Cup, we can say that for the very first time in women’s chess, we sort of outperformed the Chinese players. That in itself is a show of dominance. Along with the fact that we are better, we also have players that are currently improving. Divya, for example, is far away from reaching her peak,” says Kushager Krishnater, who has been Humpy’s second since August 2022.

The Olympiad victory, coupled with the one-two at the World Cup, have raised hopes that the final frontier — the women’s world championship title — can also be breached by an Indian woman soon.

“Chess in India was ruled by Humpy and Harika for almost 20-25 years. Humpy recently became a World Rapid Champion, her second title in the format. Humpy and Harika have performed very well at the international level. But the Women’s World Championship title has always been missed by Indian players. And now the way Gukesh has come and won the World Championship title, we expect that Divya will also follow the same path. This new generation will bring these titles back to India. They are not just ensuring that the legacy of Humpy and Harika continues, they will take that flag even higher,” predicts Kunte.

amit.kamath@expressindia.com