The 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh’s astounding Women’s World Cup victory over her senior compatriot Koneru Humpy is a reflection of the standing of Indian chess in the international arena currently.
The unprecedented events in Batumi, in Georgia, where the two Indian women featured in the summit clash of the World Championship and the much younger Divya triumphed after a nerve-wracking tie-breaker, showed the incredible depth that India has developed in the recent past.
Divya’s win was dubbed by the legendary Viswanathan Anand as a ‘great celebration of Indian chess’. Nothing could have been more apt than those words of the iconic Anand, a five-time world chess champion himself and the man who inspired a nation to become the chess superpower.
Divya’s victory comes close on the heels of Indian men and women clinching the Chess Olympiad last year in Budapest, a huge moment for the sport in the country.
D. Gukesh bagging the men’s World Chess Championship and Humpy being the reigning World Women’s Rapid Chess Champion are feathers in the cap that the Indian chess fraternity would be proud of.
What makes Divya’s monumental feat even more stupendous is her age, temperament, and composure to handle the pulls and pressures of a high-stakes contest like the final against the veteran Humpy, who is double her age at 38.
The women’s chess arena is dominated by the Chinese, and for two Indians to make it to the final of the World Cup and a 19-year-old to clinch the spoils is the coming-of-age moment for the women’s game in the country.
Following in the footsteps of Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, and R. Vaishali, Divya has become the fourth woman to achieve the Grandmaster tag after reaching the final of the World Cup in Georgia.
Heading into the World Cup final, Divya did not have a single Grandmaster norm and earned the tag deservedly so after claiming the World Cup title, which makes the winner automatically eligible to be bestowed with the tag.
With Humpy and Divya qualifying for the prestigious Candidates’ Tournament next year on account of making it to the World Cup final, and the former being the only Indian woman in the top 10 women’s chess world rankings, it speaks volumes about how far Indian chess in general and Indian women’s chess in particular have come.
Quoting an ecstatic and emotional Divya after her astonishing victory would give an indication of what the moment means personally to her and Indian chess.
“It’s hard for me to speak right now. It definitely means a lot, but of course there’s a lot more to achieve. I’m hoping this is just the start.”
That’s precisely what this is all about as far as India’s ascendancy in world chess is concerned, especially in women’s chess.
