'Just relaxed': Vantika Agrawal scripts stunning win over former world champion to reach Chess World Cup Round 3

Indian International Master Vantika Agrawal stormed into the third round of the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025 in Batumi (Georgia) on Friday after beating former world champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine in a thrilling tie-breaker. Vantika, who hails from Noida, defeated 14th Women’s World Champion Ushenina 4.5-3.5 after multiple rounds of tiebreaks.

In Round 2, Vantika and Ushenina won one Classical contest each, forcing the match into the tie-breakers. In the Rapid and Blitz tie-breakers, Vantika won the first 10’+10" Rapid match before losing the second. She eventually secured the victory in the Blitz tie-breaker as she won the first 5’+3" Blitz game and drew the next one to clinch the Round 2 match.

“Just relaxed,” a super excited Vantika told FIDE after reaching the next round. “In the Classical section, I won the first match. In the second game, I was much better, but somehow, in the time crunch, I ended up losing. Again, in the 10 + 10 I got the lead with the black and drawing with white should not have been a difficult task, but yeah, then scores got levelled and I won in the blitz section.”

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Vantika explains comeback win in Women’s World Cup

Explaining how she scripted a win after squandering the lead in the Classical section, Vantika said: “In the earlier games, the mistake I made was that I was thinking a draw was enough, but here I was thinking I just had to play well. I was not thinking about the result. I think that kind of helped me a lot.”

By reaching Round 3 of the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025, Vantika has already secured a prize money of $6,750. She will now face the former World Rapid and three-time World Blitz Women’s champion GM Kateryna Lagno of Russia in Round 3 of the World Cup.

Meanwhile, International Master Padmini Rout lost to Alexandra Kosteniuk of Switzerland, also a former world champion, in Round 2 and exited the tournament. Women’s International Master Priyanka K was also dumped out of the World Cup after losing both Rapid tie-break games against Klaudia Kulon of Poland.

India’s Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh have already advanced to the third round of the FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup 2025.

Koneru Humpy will take on Klaudia Kulon of Poland in the third round, while D Harika faces Stavroula Tsolakidou of Greece.

R Vaishali will be up against Carrisa Yip of the United States and Divya Deshmukh Teodora takes on Injac of Serbia.