Indian women chess players lack the support they need: Koneru Humpy

Out of the 206 participants at the World Cup in Goa, India’s newly crowned Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh was the only female participant. She bowed out of contention in the very first round, losing to a higher-rated Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis of Greece.

"I have always mentioned that young girls need to participate in the men’s circuit so that they could gain experience," said Humpy. "They will get the opportunity to improve their rating and to learn more skills from the stronger players by doing so.

"I’ve done it myself when I was a youngster. Today, I think, people are very aware that women should also take part in the open so that they could get that exposure. In the present generation, the youngsters are smart enough that they utilise the opportunities whenever they get.

"I have been following many of them who have been taking part in the open events. They are improving their middle game and end game skills as well," she added.

Having qualified for the 2026 Women’s Candidates by finishing as runner-up to Deshmukh at the 2025 Women’s FIDE World Cup earlier this year, Humpy feels women’s chess is getting more competitive with each passing day.

"I think it is getting tougher year by year," said Humpy. I see that the players are getting very well prepared.

"Women’s chess is also becoming more and more professional. They are hiring professional seconds, grandmasters and putting up a team. Thanks to FIDE for bringing up the Grand Prix series which was started back in 2009. So from then to now, the professionalism in women’s chess has improved a lot and the financial conditions have improved too," she added.

What holds Indian women’s chess behind?

Humpy, the first Indian woman to earn the Grandmaster title, believes that though women’s chess is slowly gaining visibility, it is still unsustainable for players outside of top-10 rankings to play the sport professionally.

"I think only if you are in the top-10 of women’s rankings, I would consider they could be sustainable to be professionals," said Humpy. "For the rest of them, it is still not comfortable.

"But it is still much better than the previous generation. If you talk about the financial conditions you can’t compare it. I don’t think most of the players are just playing for money. It’s also out of passion. Because probably, if you are putting the same amount of energy in any other sport like cricket or if you look at something like tennis or other sports, you’ll be earning much, much higher," she added.

India currently has three chess players – Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Arjun Erigaisi – among the top five in the world in the open section. The likes of Vidit Gujrathi, Aravindh Chitambaram, Pentala Harikrishna and others also combine them to form a potent force.

Women’s chess in the country, however, lacks that depth. Humpy attributes this to the lack of support – not merely financial. But rather, she breaks it down to existing issues at a societal level.

"Maybe they (girls in India) are lacking the support they need," said Humpy. "Support in the sense of not just about the finance, but also having proper coaching. Someone guiding them to get the right kind of trainers.

"For boys, it is very easy to travel or to gather in one place and just start working. But for girls, we have hesitation from parents to send a girl individually or send them to a new place. So these kinds of hurdles are always prevalent in society.

"Unless we have a proper training system where we have a professional coach who takes care of players depending on their style, it’s difficult to get a group of players always coming up.

"Till now, I believe, it’s mostly the individual effort of the players with support of their family or whatever interest they had towards the game. That’s how they have built up their career," she further explained.

The 38-year-old Grandmaster, however, remains optimistic about women’s chess in India. She draws inspiration from the recent success of the Indian women’s cricket team, who’ve turned into superstars following their title triumph at the 2025 ICC Women’s ODI World Cup.

"I believe in the future we will be neck-to-neck with the men in competing for the prize money and competing for the best places," said Humpy.

"That’s what we see in cricket now, right? Women’s cricket when it started, there was nothing, people were even criticising them. But today they have won the World cup and people started appreciating and they’re getting that recognition. I think women’s chess will be going the same way now," she added.