Queen on the board: On R. Vaishali winning the Womens Candidates tournament

The significance of R. Vaishali winning the Women’s Candidates cannot be overstated. The winner of the gruelling 14-round tournament, featuring the world’s top chess players, gets the right to challenge the World champion; now the 24-year-old, who was not among the favourites in Cyprus, will take on China’s Ju Wenjun in the World championship later this year. Vaishali is the first Indian to win the Women’s Candidates, which dates back to 1952, and now only the second Indian to contest the Women’s World (classical) chess championship match. She must be aiming to become the first Indian to capture the crown that matters most in women’s chess. Besides Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh also played at the Candidates, though she had a forgettable tournament, finishing seventh in a field of eight. Divya had made history herself last July when she won the World Cup: she was the first Indian woman to win that prestigious event. It is remarkable that two young Indian women have won two of the biggest events in world chess within a space of nine months. And Koneru Humpy had clinched her second World rapid championship in December 2024.

Notwithstanding their successes, and the fact that Indian women, like the men, are the reigning World team champions (by winning the Chess Olympiad), the country cannot boast of great depth in women’s chess. While there is no shortage of fresh talent among boys on the Indian chessboard, the story is different when it comes to girls. Women like Vaishali and Divya are not products of the system; they have succeeded because of their parents, and in the case of the former, generous corporate sponsorship has also played a role. Corporates have also contributed to the staggering growth of Indian chess. The WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA), founded by Sandeep Singhal and five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand, ensured that money was no constraint for Gukesh’s challenge for the World title against Ding Liren in 2024. Indian chess can get only better if more corporates step forward. To ensure that women’s chess keeps its momentum, the chess federation should focus on girls, get them trained by Grandmasters, and organise more tournaments for them.