 "British Woman FIDE Master Bodhana Sivanandan became the youngest female player to defeat at Grandmaster at the age of 10 years, 5 months and 1 day, breaking the record previously held by USA's Carissa Yip. Image credit: FIDE")
Indians sure are making headlines when it comes to chess whichever part of the world they live in, whether they’re representing India or not. The young trio of D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi have been hogging the limelight for the better part of the last couple of years, while Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh have been keeping the Indian flag flying high in the women’s game.
Bodhana Sivanandan, a Briton of Indian origin, forced the chess player to sit up and take notice of her after becoming the youngest female player ever to defeat a Grandmaster on Sunday. Bodhana achieved the feat at the tender age of 10 years, five months and one day when she defeated 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the final round of the British Chess Championship in Liverpool.
USA’s Carissa Yip was the previous holder of the record, having achieved the feat at the age of 10 years, 11 months and 20 days in 2019.
That wasn’t the only record that Bodhana broke as she also became the youngest Woman International Master with her victory over Wells while also securing her first Woman Grand Master norm during the course of the event.
Who is Bodhana Sivanandan?
Woman FIDE Master Bodhana’s family hails from Tiruchirappalli in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Her father, Sivanandan Velayutham, had moved to London along with his family in 2007, eight years before Bodhana was born.
Bodhana, who began to play chess at the age of five, had discovered her love for the game by accident, having stumbled across a board at home.
“Bodhana started playing chess when she was just five years old. We had no plans to make her play chess. She just stumbled across a chess board at home, and started to play,” Bodhana’s father Sivanandan told The Indian Express.
“I knew just basic chess, so I downloaded Chess.com to help her learn by watching the videos there. Back then, I just got her a free version, thinking she might not continue the sport,” he added.
Little did young Bodhana, or her family members, know that she would become the face of British chess not long after her first introduction to the game. She had, after all, met then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street at the tender age of 8.
And after her victory over Wells, Bodhana has the entire chess world buzzing at the discovery of another young prodigy who has the makings of a star.