Checkmate in Her Genes

Divya Deshmukh’s World Cup victory signals a generational shift in Indian chess.

For much of the past two decades, Indian chess has revolved around the familiar names of Viswanathan Anand, Pentala Harikrishna and Koneru Humpy. This changed with the advent of Gukesh Dommaraju, whose ascent marked the arrival of a new generation.

But last week in Batumi, Georgia, yet another remarkable revolution unfolded on the board. A tense final at the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup saw a 19-year-old from Nagpur calmly dismantling the household names of Indian chess. Divya Deshmukh won the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup after Koneru Humpy, India’s first female Grandmaster, resigned following a blunder in the second rapid tie-break. At 19, she became the youngest and only Indian woman to claim the title and becoming the country’s 88th.

Her rise has been anything but conventional. Divya entered the tournament as the 15th seed, without a single Grandmaster norm to her name. Her path to the final was stacked with formidable opponents: Zhu Jiner in Round 4, Harika Dronavalli in the quarter-finals, Tan Zhongyi in the semis. After being pushed to the edge in some of these nail-biting matches, Divya managed to prevail each time, clawing back from an inferior position. The final against Koneru Humpy, was decided not in the classical format but in rapid tie-breaks, making it a humdinger to remember.

As a five-year-old, Divya had been enrolled in badminton classes, but was too short to reach the net. By chance, in the same building, a chess academy run by Rahul Joshi offered an alternative. Her parents, both doctors in Nagpur, nudged her toward the board.

Her family tells a longer story. Divya’s maternal great-grandfather, Dr Durgaprasad Sharma, was a chess aficionado who played weekly games with Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian reformer. Her mother, Dr. Namrata Deshmukh, saw chess less as a pastime than as a latent inheritance. “It’s in her [Divya’s] genes,” she says.

By 2012, Divya had won her first national gold medal. Two years later, she became the U-10 World Champion in Durban, South Africa. What followed was a steady climb through the ranks of junior and then senior chess. She became an International Master at 17, won the national women’s championship twice, the Asian continental title once, and the World Junior Girls’ Championship by age 18. At 19, she is not so much a prodigy as a finished product still adding polish.

Her playing style is aggressive and unpredictable. Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh, one of her early coaches, compares her to Alexander Alekhine, the legendary tactician. Her positions often brim with complexity; she sacrifices material for initiative and welcomes complications most players would avoid. Yet she is also capable of grinding draws from hopeless endings.

Temperament has always distinguished her from others branded as prodigies. But Divya has carried it lightly thus far. Her academic performance at the Bhavan’s Bhagwandas Purohit Vidya Mandir in Nagpur remained strong even as she flew across time zones.

Her victory in Batumi has elevated more than just her career. It has brought Nagpur, considered a backwater in Indian chess overshadowed by Chennai and Delhi, in the spotlight. The Nagpur District Chess Association, founded in 1974, has laboured quietly for decades. Local institutions like Chanakya Chess Academy have helped build a pipeline of talent. Divya’s success offers a major boost to regional pride. Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called her “the daughter of Nagpur” and promised formal honours.

Divya is also part of a broader transformation in Indian chess. In 2024, the Indian women’s team won gold at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary. Vaishali Rameshbabu became a GM. Humpy reclaimed the World Rapid title. India, which once celebrated a handful of male GMs, is now producing elite female players with assembly-line regularity.

Still, Divya remains something of a cultural outlier. In 2024, she called out the media for focusing on her clothes and accent instead of her chess.

Now qualified for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, she has a real shot at the Women’s World Championship. Her goal is to cross the 2650 rating mark - higher than Humpy’s peak - and become not just a champion but a transformative figure.

For the moment, she is pausing after her stunning win. “I need sleep and food,” she said after the final. But the rest of India, and much of the chess world, remains wide awake, taking notice of the new kid on the chess block.