Accidental chess player and rapid winner Divya Deshmukh draws praise from Vishy Anand

“I was almost in tears after I won the game. It was very nerve-wracking. I was just overwhelmed by the way it finished,” Divya told The Indian Express a day after her title.

Serendipity had a major role to play in her taking up the sport when she was five.

“I started playing the sport accidentally. My sister used to go to badminton classes, one day my parents took me as well. But I was just four or five years old then, and I didn’t even reach the badminton net. There was a chess class happening in the same building, so my parents took me there. I liked the sport. Then, I just stuck with chess,” says Divya, who adds that her elder sister doesn’t play badminton any more.

It was her coach Rahul Joshi, who saw the spark in Divya and then convinced her parents that she had the moves on the board to make it to the big-time. Joshi, who passed away a few years back, was also the one who trained Raunak Sadhwani in his early days.

Divya signing autographs at the Tata Steel India Chess tournament in Kolkata. (Express photo: Amit Kamath)

“My coach had a huge role to play in my growth. I was about six when I won the Maharashtra state U-7 championship. After that, he spoke to my parents. He spent hours and hours to make me a better player. He’d even travel with me to events, which was a huge source of support for me,” says Divya.

“Rahul sir was the one who showed us the vision (of where Divya can be). And he was the passionate one, the one who developed interest in her for chess,” adds Divya’s father, Dr Jitendra.

Her win earned her the praise of five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who was keen to point out that Divya, a multiple-time Indian national champion, was not a player who had come out of nowhere.

“Divya surprised very nicely here. Very impressive. She hit a high gear and then kept going with lots and lots of wins. For me what was impressive was that after she lost her 8th round game, she had the strength to win the ninth and clinch the tournament. It was a very beautiful game actually,” Anand told journalists at a media interaction on Tuesday.

Divya says she is ‘still exploring’ if she wants to continue playing chess full time or focus on further studies.

“A lot fascinates me. I’m not sure which field to choose,” she says.