GM Divya Deshmukh defeated GM Koneru Humpy 1.5-0.5 in tiebreaks to win the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup. She earns not only $50,000, with $35,000 going to the runner-up, but she is also awarded the grandmaster title. Nineteen years old, she is the 44th woman and 88th Indian to earn the highest title in chess.
Women’s World Cup Finals Results
The top three finishers qualify for the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament, which will determine the next challenger for the women’s world championship title. The three players are Divya, Humpy, and GM Tan Zhongyi.
You can see the prize breakdown below:
Divya 1.5-0.5 Humpy
After two draws in the classical portion, the title match went to rapid tiebreaks (two 15+10 games). The match ended with the second game, when Divya won with the black pieces.
Game one ended in a fighting draw, even if it began with a solid Petroff Defense. After a long string of theoretical moves, Divya was left with an isolated pawn but also active pieces. She sacrificed that pawn with 20.d5!, and although the computer finds a few opportunities to stay the clean pawn up for Black, it wasn’t so easy to do in a rapid game.
Still down a pawn, it was Divya who won the opponent’s queen with 34.Rd1, though the resulting position wasn’t more than equal. It wasn’t quite clear who was playing for the win from there, but the players eventually reached a draw, almost 50 moves later.
Humpy was the one to sacrifice a pawn with the white pieces in the next game, in the Catalan Opening. In the following position, White had sufficient compensation to hold the game by shuffling, as the players did for many moves, but she then went—erroneously—for a breakthrough. 40.e4? followed by 41.d5?, unprovoked, left White in a lost endgame.
As GM Viswanathan Anand summed up on the broadcast, “Humpy just collapsed and it was totally self-inflicted. There was no need for e4 and d5. This is just one of those situations where your nerves get the better of you and there’s nothing you can do.”
This is just one of those situations where your nerves get the better of you.
—Viswanathan Anand
But that was far from the end of the story. In an eventual rook endgame, the evaluation swung from drawn to winning several times, and even as late as move 69 White could have saved the game. But Divya triumphed in the battle of nerves, and GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.
You can see the final moment of the game, where Divya is overcome by emotion after the handshake.
Divya immediately rushed to hug her mother after the game before joining an interview.
The chess world—and the regular world—took notice of this historic achievement. The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi tweeted his congratulations:
A historic final featuring two outstanding Indian chess players!
Proud of the young Divya Deshmukh on becoming FIDE Women’s World Chess Champion 2025. Congratulations to her for this remarkable feat, which will inspire several youngsters.
Koneru Humpy has also displayed… pic.twitter.com/l7fWeA3qLw
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 28, 2025
As Chess.com’s IM Rakesh Kulkarni posted, Indian teenagers are taking over. GM Gukesh Dommaraju became the world champion at age 18, and Divya won the Women’s World Cup also before turning 20—both the youngest in history to reach their respective accomplishments.
Indian 🇮🇳 Teenagers are dominating the Chess World! ❤️
18-year-old Gukesh wins the World Championship and 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh wins the World Cup! 🙌🏻 pic.twitter.com/vSJ2Gvnk7L
— Rakesh Kulkarni (@itherocky) July 28, 2025
Divya is the fourth woman from India to become a grandmaster. She defeated four GMs on her way to earning the title: GMs Zhu Jiner, Harika Dronavalli, Tan, and now Humpy. She is the first Indian player to win the Women’s World Cup and also the first Indian player to even reach the Final.
She said, “I need time to process it. I think it was fate, me getting the grandmaster title this way, because before this I didn’t even have one norm and now—before this tournament I was thinking, oh I can get my norm, and now I am a grandmaster.”
I think it was fate, me getting the grandmaster title this way.
—Divya Deshmukh
As for continued improvement as a player, she said, “I definitely need to learn endgames. I’m pretty sure at some point I messed it up.” The grandmaster title isn’t the end of the road, she said, “There’s a lot more to achieve, so I am hoping this is just the start.”
How to watch?
The 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup takes place at the Grand Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Batumi, Georgia. It is a 107-player tournament with a single-elimination knockout format and a classical time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move from the first move. Each round consists of two games at the classical time control, followed by a tiebreak in faster time controls in case the scores are tied.
Previous coverage:
- Finals Game 2: Tan Finishes 3rd With Black Win
- Finals Game 1: Humpy Survives Vs. Divya, Lei Accepts Draw In Better Position
- Semifinals Tiebreaks: Humpy Wins On Demand, Advances To All-Indian Final
- Semifinals Game 2: Divya Eliminates 3rd Seed Tan, Lei Survives Vs. Humpy
- Semifinals Game 1: Divya, Humpy Hold Draws In Semifinals Game 1
- Quarterfinals Tiebreaks: Divya Beats Harika To Reach World Cup Final 4
- Quarterfinals Game 2: Lei Wins Again To Reach World No. 2; Tan, Humpy Also Through
- Quarterfinals Game 1: Dream Day For India As All 4 Players Clinch Quarterfinal Spots
- Round 4 Game 2: Zhu Strikes Back As Lei, Tan, Song, Dzagnidze Reach Quarterfinals
- Round 4 Game 1: Divya Stuns Zhu As Other Chinese Stars Win
- Round 3 Tiebreaks: 19-year-old Song Yuxin Knocks Out 5th Seed Anna Muzychuk
- Round 3 Game 2: Gunina, Lagno Strike Back To Force Tiebreaks
- Round 3 Game 1: Vantika Stuns Lagno As Women’s World Cup Round 3 Begins
- Round 2 Tiebreaks: Kamalidenova Gives Defending Champion Goryachkina Early Exit
- Round 2 Game 2: 14-Year-Old Kaliakhmet Eliminates GM Batsiashvili
- Round 2 Game 1: Kazakh 19-Year-Old Kamalidenova Upsets Goryachkina, 2023 Winner
- Round 1 Tiebreaks: Dark Horse Priyanka Eliminates Hungary’s No. 1
- Round 1 Game 2: 11 Matches Go To Tiebreaks
- Round 1 Game 1: Jumpy Start For Favorites At FIDE Women’s World Cup
