Koneru Humpy vs Divya Deshmukh. Andhra Pradesh vs Maharashtra. 38-year-old vs 19-year-old. Grandmaster vs International Master. Ultimately, the 2025 FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup comes down to India vs India, and that is quite the victory for Indian chess.
Granted the World Cup is a tournament that is a rung below the Candidates and the World Championship, but having Indian women dominate a field that was almost exclusively topped by Chinese players in recent years is a testament to the (Indian) winds of change blowing across the world of chess.
By qualifying for the final, both Humpy and Divya have sealed their spot in the Candidates, and with an Indian victor guaranteed, all that’s left for the Indian chess fan is which generation they’re cheering for.
There’s the undoubted pedigree of world no. 4 and reigning two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, Koneru Humpy, who was also the first Indian woman to ever become a grandmaster and the second-youngest woman ever to do so. She even competed for the World Championship in 2011, losing to Hou Yifan of China, and then took a two-year maternity break from 2017 to 2019. Humpy’s enjoying a late-career renaissance, having won the Chess Olympiad and the most recent World Rapid Championships to simply underline her legacy as the greatest Indian woman chess player of all time.
At the other end of the spectrum is Divya Deshmukh, a 19-year-old who is yet to achieve the three norms required to become Grandmaster, but should she win the World Cup, will automatically become one. Divya was part of that Olympiad gold-winning team alongside Humpy, and has been experiencing a stellar 2025. There was the win over world champion Hou Yifan in June, which has been followed by a giant-killing spree at the World Cup. Former world champion Tan Zhongyi, second seed Zhu Jiner and India’s very own Harika Dronavalli fell victim to Divya’s weapons on the board. Humpy wasn’t far behind, taking down top seed Lei Tingjie in tie-breaks to set up the all-Indian final.
Stylistically, this contest is a battle of the solid, positional chess that Humpy relies on, as opposed to the high-risk, aggressive chess that Divya has used all of this tournament. It remains a battle of a traditionally educated chess player in Humpy against the engine-reared Divya – a contest that’s increasingly becoming the sport’s best matchup.
The final begins with two classical rounds, one on Saturday, July 26 and another on Sunday, July 27 (both starting at 4:45 PM IST). Should there not be a winner by then, the fate of the World Cup will come down to tie-breaks on Monday.
You can follow all the action from game 1 of the final on our live blog, below:
