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In the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup in Batumi, Georgia on Monday, July 7, India players Padmini Rout, Nandhidhaa PV, and Vantika Agrawal won their respective matches and qualified for the second round of the tournament. Agrawal got the better of Turkmenistan’s Lala Shohradova convincingly in just 27 moves to advance to the competition’s second round while Nandhidhaa PV extracted a hard-fought victory as she was in frail position at a point in the game against Anahi Ortiz. However, Ortiz’s blunder cost her as PV grabbed the opportunity and won the game.
With two wins in the opening round, Nandhidhaa qualified for the further stage of the competition. Nandhidhaa will next take on her compatriot Harika Dronavalli. The defeated player in this game will result in the elimination of either of any Indians from the tournament. Talking about Padmini Rout, she won her second consecutive match in the second round as she beat China’s Lanlin Zhang to punch her ticket for the second round. Apart from these three Indians, Priyanka K also won her game against Hungary’s Gaal Zsoka. In a must-win contest, Priyanka forced a tiebreak on her Hungarian counterpart. She won the match in 34 moves.
Kiran Mohanty eliminated from the tournament
Kiran Mohanty is the only Indian player who crashed out of the tournament. Mohanty, who lost her opening match, settled for a stalemate against China’s Song Yuxin. She failed to breach the defensive setup from Song which eventually forced Mohanty to settle for a draw after 30 moves.
The stalemate ended her campaign in the competition. Priyanka K, Agrawal, Rout, and Nandhidhaa have come until this stage of the competition from the first round while Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali, and Divya Deshmukh were seeded directly into the second round as per their FIDE rankings.
