Nagpur: Woman Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh of Nagpur stormed into the final, defeating former world champion Zhongyi Tan of China in the second game of the semifinals and winning the minimatch 1.5-0.5 in the FIDE Women’s World Chess Cup. In the process, Divya became the first Indian to make it to the Candidates’ tournament.
In another semifinals, Grandmaster Koneru Humpy held her nerves to score a come-from-behind victory over China’s TIngjie Lei in the tiebreaker to set up an all-Indian summit clash against Divya Deshmukh. Humpy will clash with Divya in the final starting after a day’s rest starting on Saturday. With Humpy winning, both she and Divya have now qualified for the Women’s candidates’ tournament next year.
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The stakes are high here as the final berth also ensured Divya entry in the women’s Candidates’ tournament next year that will decide the challenger to Wenjun Ju, the reigning women’s world champion. Having already eliminated second seed Zoner Jhu of China and then compatriot Grandmaster D Harika in the quarter-finals, Divya continued to be the giant slayer of the event and her game against Tan was a testament to her growing chess skills.
With the Indian boys making a great headway at the top of the chess world, it was already time for the girls to have a say and Divya is the new girl on the block after R Vaishali. It was tricks and strategy on display by Divya as she converted to an Alapin Sicilian as white and her time exchange of Bishops for knights guaranteed a pawn plus endgame. Tan had her chances in the middle game but the former women’s world champion did not make use of them and at some point simply missed the thread of the position.
As the endgame arrived, Divya had a couple of extra pawns to coast but Tan remained resourceful right till the end of the game. Divya had an outside passed pawn after the dust subsided and it should have been an easy picking, but the fortunes fluctuated a lot. For the record, the game lasted 101 moves.
Earlier, having drawn the first two games in the normal time control, Humpy had to settle up with another 1-1 draw in the tie-breaker that comprised two games with 15 minutes for both players with an increment. After two draws here, Humpy had to really work hard in the next set of tie-break games that had 10 minutes for both players with another increment. Lei got in the lead early in the set of these two games and Humpy erred in the middle game to lose a pawn and get into a difficult endgame. It was a win on demand wherein Humpy dominated the next game. The Queen pawn opening was good enough wherein Humpy was in command right from the word go.
