Teen Chess Star Divya Beats Harika to Enter FIDE Women's Semifinals

Nineteen-year-old Divya Deshmukh has made the Semifinals of the 2025 FIDE Women's World Cup after winning a 2-0 all-Indian tiebreak battle with Harika Dronavalli.

Divya outplayed Harika in a high-quality first game before Harika almost struck back in the second. When she did not, it was Divya who was through to play a semifinal against GM Tan Zhongyi. The other semifinal is GM Lei Tingjie versus GM Koneru Humpy.

The Semifinals will be played on Tuesday, July 22, starting at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST. There was only one tiebreak game played Monday in Batumi chess tournament, and it was the all-Indian clash between past superstar Harika and an up and coming superstar in Divya.

Divya Deshmukh defeats GM Harika 2-0 to reach FIDE Women’s World Cup Semis.

Teen IM Divya stuns Harika with strategic brilliance in tiebreak clash.

Divya to face GM Tan Zhongyi in Semifinals after historic all-Indian battle.

Both players had already played tiebreak games, with Harika beating IM Stavroula Tsolakidou and GM Kateryna Lagno each in four games.

Afterwards, she said: "So I did not wish to come to the world cup and get into tiebreaks originally. This is not my fate, but ok, so far so good!" Once again Divya started with a win. Divya credited her coach for the significant amount of work invested in opening preparation ahead of the game.

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Divya now had 17 minutes on her clock as opposed to the 15 minutes she started with, where she only had to think when Harika had already been a little way off. The sequence 24...Rxe5? was the turning point at which Divya's advantage became one of winning.  

She played 25.Bd4! correctly and subsequently got to play 26.Bg7 and sacrifice that monster of a bishop on g7 to all but finish the job.

“When I initially went into the tournament I knew that I didn't want to play any tiebreaks, but that is not my fate”, says Divya Deshmukh.