 "Divya, Humpy, Harika, and Vaishali all four made it to the FIDE Women's World Cup quarter-finals. Image: @FIDE_chess")
Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, and R Vaishali, all four Indian participants, have booked a place in the quarter-finals of the FIDE Women’s World Cup after winning their respective tiebreakers.
Delight for Indians in the FIDE Women’s World Cup
The victory row was started by Divya Deshmukh, who stunned the second seed Chinese Zhu Jiner 1.50-0.5 in tiebreaks in the pre-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 came 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 white pieces a day before.
The evergreen Koneru Kumpy also made it to the last eight by beating Switzerland’s Alexandra Kosteniuk with the same scoreline in the tiebreaks. Humpy will lock horns with China’s Yuxin Song for a place in the semi-finals.
As for Harika, she lost the first game of her 15+10 Rapid tiebreaks against Russia’s Katerina Lagno but bounced back in the second one to even things out. The contest then moved to 10+10 Rapid tiebreaks where Harika drew the first game with black pieces but then finally came up with a win with white pieces to seal a place in the quarter-final. Harika will meet Divya in an all-Indian quarter-final.
With three Indians already in, it was then the turn of R. Vaishali to get to the victory path. She split the games 15+10 as well as 10+10 Rapid tiebreaks against Meruert Kamalidenova of Kazakhstan. It went deeper to blitz tiebreaks with each player getting five minutes with an increment of three seconds per move in each game. Vaishali drew the first game with black pieces and then went on to win the second game with white pieces. Vaishali’s quarter-final opponent will be China’s Tan Zhongyi.
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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In FIDE Women’s World Cup players are required to 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.