Four Indian women chess players have reached the quarterfinals of the FIDE Women’s World Cup. Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, R. Vaishali and International Master Divya Deshmukh have made their place in the quarter finals. Veteran Humpy also defeated former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk of Switzerland 1.5-0.5 in tiebreaks. Humpy will face China’s Yuxin Song for a place in the semi-finals.
One of Divya and Harika is sure to reach the semi-finals. Divya and Harika will face each other in the quarter-finals. This will make this contest completely Indian. Divya defeated second seeded Chinese player Zhu Jiner 1.5-0.5 in the pre-quarterfinals. She won the first game with black pieces and drew the second game with white pieces.
Harika lost the first game of the 15+10 rapid tiebreak against Russia’s Katerina Lagno but came back in the second game to win. The match then went into 10+10 rapid tiebreaks, where Harika drew the first game with black pieces and won the second game with white pieces.
R. Vaishali divided the games in 15+10 and 10+10 rapid tiebreaks against Meruert Kamalidenova of Kazakhstan. The match moved to blitz tiebreaks, where each player got five minutes with three-second increments per game.