FIDE Candidates 2026: Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali draw; Divya loses in Round 4

India's Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Vaishali Rameshbabu drew their respective games, while Divya Deshmukh suffered a loss in the fourth round of the 2026 FIDE Candidates on Wednesday.

Up against the lowest rated player in the open section, Praggnanandhaa held steady with the black pieces in the semi-slav opening.

The 20-year-old from Chennai quickly exchanged almost all the pieces. They only had six pawns each, and an opposite coloured bishop on the board when they repeated thrice to shake hands after a 37-move battle.

Praggnanandhaa now has 2 points from four rounds and trails the unbeaten leader Javokhir Sindarov by a point-and-a-half.

Vaishali only unbeaten Indian

Meanwhile in the women's section, Deshmukh fell to a loss with the white pieces against a higher-rated Zhu Jiner of China.

Deshmukh, the youngest player in the women's Candidates, started solidly in the reverse sicilian opening, but was outplayed in the middle game after she misplaced her light-squared bishop on the d3 square in the 14th move.

Zhu slowly pressed home the advantage from that point onwards to hand the Women's World Cup winner her first loss of the tournament.

Deshmukh's loss left Vaishali as the lone unbeaten Indian in the 2026 Candidates.

Much like her brother, Vaishali earned a comfortable draw in the fourth round against Aleksandra Goryachkina.

Playing with the white pieces, Vaishali didn't seemed interested in pressing hard in the Italian game. The match ended with a three-fold repetition in 27 moves.

Vaishali now has 2 points in four rounds and is half-a-point behind leaders Anna Muzychuk and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Deshmukh, meanwhile, has 1.5 points and sits at the bottom of the leaderboard as the 2026 Candidates heads into its first rest day.