Divya Deshmukh dominates again, topples China's Lei Tingjie to reach Women's Speed Chess Championship quarterfinals
India's latest (88th) Grandmaster and only the fourth female GM from the country after winning the Women's World Cup, Divya, beat Lei in the Women's Speed Chess Championship 2025 on Monday. Divya annihilated Lei 10-3 to reach the quarterfinals of the event conducted by chess.com in an online format.
A high-on-confidence Divya decimated Lei with both white and black pieces. She lost only one game while ending up winning eight and drawing four to get an eight-point win over the Chinese.
Earlier, Divya beat compatriot Koneru Humpy in the finals of the Women's World Cup for her biggest win in her career. Winning the FIDE Women's World Cup also helped her secure a spot in the FIDE Women's Candidates tournament, where eight players will battle for the right to challenge the reigning women's world champion Ju Wenjun in the next Women's World Championship.
Divya will next be up against another Chinese, this time World No. 1 Hou Yifan, in the quarterfinals. Hou beat her opponent 11-3 in a lopsided pre-quarters against Karina Ambartsumova.
Another Indian in the event, R. Vaishali, had lost her round of 16 clash against the USA's Alice Lee and took an early exit.
The Women's Speed Chess Championship is an online single-elimination tournament featuring 16 players, comprising eight qualifiers and eight direct invites, competing for a total prize pool of $75,000.
All matches follow a three-segment structure with different time controls. In the round of 16 and quarterfinals, players first compete in 5+1 games (5 minutes with a 1-second increment per move) for 45 minutes, followed by 3+1 games (3 minutes + 1-second increment) for 30 minutes, and conclude with 1+1 games (1 minute + 1-second increment) for 15 minutes. The semifinals and finals expand these segments to 75 minutes of 5+1 games, 50 minutes of 3+1 games, and 25 minutes of 1+1 games. The scoring system awards 1 point for a win and 0.5 points to each player for a draw, with the match winner being the competitor who accumulates the most points across all segments.
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