Divya Deshmukh crowned FIDE World Junior Girls Chess Champion

Divya Deshmukh was crowned the FIDE World Junior Girls Chess Champion 2024 after a dominating performance at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, on Thursday.

She won her final round match against Krasteva Beloslava of Bulgaria to confirm her victory in the prestigious tournament. In all, Divya secure a solid 10 points out of 11, which included nine wins and two draws.

A battle of attrition

Divya, playing with white pieces in the final round, had a good start from the opening and had a great opportunity to pull ahead. Thereafter, a few mistakes saw her squander the initiative at the mid-game stage. 

But, Krasteva made few mistakes of her own in the end game and handed the advantage right back to Divya, who seized the initiative this time around with a decent accuracy of 92.2 percent and pocketed the World championships title.

Divya is now the fourth Indian women's player to win the title at these U20 championships after Humpy Koneru (2001), Harika Dronavalli (2008) and Soumya Swaminathan (2009).

In other results, Mkrtchyan Mariam of Armenia posted a victory over Rakshitta Ravi of India to clinch the silver medal.

This loss meant that Rakshitta was relegated from a medal-position to the fifth spot with a score of 7.5/8.

Disappointment in men's section

The intense battle in the open section titled in favor of Nogerbek Kazybek of Kazakhstan who won his final match and nudged out Ohanyan Emin of Armenia to claim the title by virtue of better tie-breaks and with 8.5 points out of 11.

As for the Indian players in the men's section, no one could not deliver the crucial wins in the final round as both Anuj Shrivatri and Aditya Samant played out a draw in the final round.

Hence, no Indian was able to make a top-5 finish in the open category.

The best placed Indian was Pranav Anand who finished on 10th position with 7.5 points. He secured a crucial win over Arsen Davtyan of Armenia in the final round to enter the top-10.