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The ongoing FIDE Women’s World Cup is an important event on the calendar since it offers three spots to the prestigious 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament, the tournament which will decide the challenger to reigning world champion Ju Wenjun. The FIDE World Cup features head-to-head knockout matches with two classical games with white pieces once. If tied, players compete in best-of-two tiebreaks: first 15+10 (15 minutes +10 second increment per move), then 10+10, followed by 5+3. If still tied, single 3+2 ‘sudden-death’ games are played until a winner emerges.
In such an intense tournament, India’s Vantika Agrawal stunned former women’s world champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine in Game 1 of Round 2. Vantika, an International Master (IM) with a rating of 2377, defeated Ushenina while playing with white pieces, forcing her opponent to resign in 36 moves. She played in an intense match that went the distance with Vantika emerging victorious 4.5-3.5 after a series of nerve-wracking tiebreaks.
“Just relaxed,” a super excited Vantika told FIDE after reaching the next round. “In the earlier games, the mistakes I made was that I was thinking a draw was enough, but here I just had to play well. I was not thinking about the result. I think that kind of helped me a lot,” she further added. She will now face the former World Rapid and three-time World Blitz Women’s champion GM Kateryna Lagno of Russia in Round 3 of the World Cup.
Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali, among others have qualified to the third round
Vantika will join many of her teammates from the 2024 Chess Olympiad gold medal winning Indian women’s team. Koneru Humpy defeated Khamdamova Afruza of Uzbekistan 1.5-0.5, Harika Dronavalli beat her compatriot Nandhidhaa PV 1.5-0.5. Vaishali Rameshbabu prevailed by a score of 2-0 over Ouellet Maili-Jade of Canada and Divya Deshmukh defeated Mgeladze Kesaria of Georgia 1.5-0.5, earning qualification in the next round of the tournament.
Meanwhile, International Master Padmini Rout lost to Alexandria Kosteniuk of Switzerland, also a former world champion, in Round 2 and exited the tournament, International Master Priyanka K lost both the rapid tie-break games against Klaudia Kulon of Poland, which resulted in her exit.
