The wildcard entrant GM Divya Deshmukh bowed out of the 2025 FIDE World Cup in Goa with a second successive loss in the first round on Sunday.
Having lost the opening game with white pieces, the 19-year-old women’s world cup champion needed a win to stay alive on Sunday against Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis.
Deshmukh tried her best to get past Stamatis but ultimately had to accept defeat in a marathon 73-move game with her opponent’s additional pawn in the endgame making the difference.
Meanwhile, the experienced Surya Shekhar Ganguly, GM Raunak Sadhwani and GM Karthik Venkatraman scored comfortable victories and M Pranesh played out a draw to advance to the second round.
IM Aronyak Ghosh, on the other hand, defeated GM Mateusz Bartel of Poland to force a tie-breaker in the first round.
The 42-year-old Ganguly, playing back, knew that Ahmadzada had to take risks to draw level after losing the opening game and the Indian took control of the match by attacking from his opponent’s king side and forced him to resign after just 28 moves and became the first Indian to advance to the second round.
Ganguly will face Maxime Vachier-Lagrave next.
Karthik, who had drawn his opening game against GM Roberto Garia Pantoja on Saturday, forced his opponent to resign after 39 moves to set up a second round clash against compatriot GM Aravindh Chithambaram.
Also advancing to the next round was Sadhwani. The 19-year-old from Nagpur had managed to draw the opening game against FM Daniel Barrish of South Africa despite making errors. On Sunday, he made no mistakes to clinch a win with black pieces in 39 moves.
While Ganguly, Sadhwani and Karthik won, 19-year-old Pranesh did not take any unnecessary risk against Kazakhstan’s Satbek Akhmedinov and split the point after 36 moves in a rook-pawn end game.
Four other Indian players, Raja Rithvik R, Diptayan Ghosh, Lalit Babu MR and Narayanan SL will now be taking the rapid route to make it to the next round after they drew their respective games.
Rithvik was held to a draw by Kazakhstan’s Kazybek Nogerbek in 30 moves in the second game on Sunday while Diptayan Ghosh, playing white, could not find a way past China’s GM Peng Xiongjian after 39 moves.
Indian results (Game 2-Round 1)
GM Pranav V bt Ala Eddine Boulrens (Alg) 2:0
GM Raunak Sadhwani bt FM Daniel Barrish (RSA) 1.5:0.5
M Pranesh bt IM Satbek Akhmedinov (Kaz) 1.5:0.5
GM Karthik Venkataraman bt GM Roberto Garcia Pantoja (Cub) 1.5:0.5
GM Diptayan Ghosh drew with GM Peng Xiongjian (CHN) 1:1
GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly bt GM Ahmad Ahmadzada (AZE) 2:0
GM Iniyan Pa bt GM Dylan Berdayes (Cub) 1.5:0.5
GM Raja Rithvik R drew with Kazybek Nogerbek (Kaz) 1:1
IM Aronyak Ghosh drew with GM Mateusz Bartel (Pol) 1:1
GM Lalit Babu MR drew with GM Max Warmerdam (Ned) 1:1
GM Narayanan SL drew with IM Steven Rojas (Per) 1:1
IM Himal Gusain lost to GM Andy Woodward (USA) bt 0:2
IM Harshavardhan GB lost to GM Mustafa Yilmaz (Tur) 0.5:1.5
IM Neelash Saha lost to GM Georg Meier (Uru) 0.5:1.5
GM Leon Luke Mendonca lost to IM Shixu B Wang (Chn) 0.5:1.5
GM Divya Deshmukh lost to GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (Gre) 0:2
