Deshmukh Victorious @ Women’s Chess World Cup

Divya Deshmukh defeated Humpy Koneru 1.5-0.5 in tiebreaks to win the 2025 Women’s Chess World Cup. Consequently, she has also earned the Grandmaster title!

The first game was tense, with a chance for both players in the first half. The last 40 moves had a queen for White (Deshmukh) against a rook, bishop, and pawn for Black (Koneru) which balanced out completely.

Game two was an incredible drama. Out of a Catalan, Koneru, now with White, found herself down a pawn but with full compensation, with a pile of major pieces on Black’s a-pawn and nothing for Black to push.

She then made an overly optimistic advance, 40. e4?! dxe4 41. d5?, attempting to use a pin on the c-file. But Black was much better when the pin was switched to the 5th rank, 41. …Qe5! (D).

White defended with 42. Rd1, and Black needed to add another pin with 42. …Rd8!. Instead she swapped down, 42. …cxd5?? 43. Rxd5 and the game returned to rough equality. The players soon exchanged queens, and Deshmukh had the chances to press with the extra a-pawn surviving in a rook endgame.

As has been written many times through this tournament, rook endgames are nasty, tricky things! Several blunders later, the final mistake was made.

White played 69. h7??, meaning to deflect the black rook from the a-pawn. It worked, but the only drawing move was 69. Ke5!!. The white king intends to continue across to the kingside to support the white pawns, while Black has trouble utilizing their king and rook actively. Instead 69. h7?? Rxh7 70. Rxa2 Kg3 leaves White’s king completely misplaced to stop the f-pawn, and Koneru resigned in the following position, after 75. …Kg2.

Warm congratulations to Deshmukh on her victory. You can review all the action on Lichess.

Photo by Anna Shtourman / FIDE