FIDE Women's World Cup 2025: Indians in action in pre-quarterfinals; match-ups, pairings, colours, tournament tree
Divya Deshmukh became the first Indian to qualify for Round 4 after beating Serbian IM Teodora Injac 1.5-0.5 after the two-legged Classical match. She was followed by current World Rapid Champion, Koneru Humpy, who defeated Poland's Klaudia Kulon with the same 1.5-0.5 margin through Classical matches.
The rest three Indian participants — Harika Dronavalli, R. Vaishali and Vantika Agrawal — played out a 1.0-1.0 draw in Classical time-control and moved to tiebreaks.
Vantika was playing against a strong GM Kateryna Lagno, a multiple-time Blitz and Rapid World Champion. The young Indian started with a Classical win but the experienced Russian grandmaster enforced tiebreaks after beating Vantika in the following leg. Both of them played three draws before Lagno prevailed over Vantika with white pieces in the 10-minute time-control Rapid game.
Lagno will take on Harika Dronavalli in Round 4 after the India No. 2 beat Stavroula Tsolakidou of Greece comfortably in tiebreaks. Vaishali beat the young sensation from the USA, IM Carissa Yip to make it into the pre-quarters.
Divya will have an uphill task as she takes on China's Zhu Jiner, the current World No. 4 in Round 4. Humpy vs Alexandra Kosteniuk will be an equal match-up. Vaishali will lock horns with Kazakhstan's Meruert Kamalidenova.
Vaishali and Divya will play their first match with white pieces, while Humpy and Harika will have the black pieces for the first match.
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