The 2025 Women’s Chess World Cup final will be an all-Indian clash.
Koneru Humpy will face Divya Deshmukh in the 2025 Women’s Chess World Cup final. Both beat Chinese players in their respective semifinals to confirm what has been known for a while now – the winds of power in chess are all blowing in India’s direction.
From India’s team gold medal sweep at the Olympiad last year to Humpy becoming world Rapid champion, from Gukesh Dommaraju becoming world champion to now Divya and Humpy contesting a final between themselves; it’s hard to find a sport in the history of India that has had such a period of world dominance.
Consider this: From 1991 onwards, China have had six different women’s world champions. In that 34-year span, only nine years have seen the reigning women’s world champion not be from China. So when two Chinese players, seeded first and third at this World Cup, were facing up to Humpy and Divya in the two semifinals, one might have been forgiven for being pessimistic about the Indians’ chances. Instead, what followed was just more Indian chess history.
The second Classical game in both semifinals were wild affairs. Both Divya and Humpy had their chances to close it out then and there, both looked back on missed opportunities during that game itself. Divya found herself having a bone thrown to her by Tan Zhongyi’s late blunder, Humpy had no such luck against Lei Tingjie.
In the tie-breaks, Humpy lost the first 10-minute rapid game after playing out draws in the two 15-minute rapid games. She needed to pull off a win on demand to just stay in the hunt and take the match to the blitz tie-breaks. She did just that, with a completely dominant win that made a mockery of any sense of pressure or nerves. Humpy had everything to lose, she couldn’t afford a misstep anywhere. She made none. From first to last, she dominated that game, and from then on, the match itself.
The blitz tie-break games were wild as blitz matches often tend to be. But Humpy never really found herself under extreme pressure, either on the board or in terms of the clock. She played two brilliant games, both of which she won, and finally took the match by a 5-3 scoreline.
���� Humpy Koneru will face ���� Divya Deshmukh in the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025 Final! ��#FIDEWorldCup pic.twitter.com/OG0P54Q2og
– International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 24, 2025
This weekend’s final will see not just a slice of Indian chess history being made, but also a clash of Indian chess’ generations. Divya is 19 years old. Humpy is twice as old as that. At the start of this World Cup, Humpy had 80 ELO rating points more than Divya, 15 places separated them in the FIDE women’s world rankings. However, after having disposed of two top ten players (Zhu Jiner and Zhongyi) and the world no.12 (Harika Dronavalli), Divya comes into this final as Humpy’s equal, at least in terms of form, if not experience or pedigree.
“I think it’s one of the happiest moments for our chess fans, because the title is India’s for sure. It will be a tough game, Divya has played tremendously well throughout the tournament,” Humpy said on FIDE’s official broadcast after the win in her semifinal.
Whichever that final goes, there are few things that are certain. The most basic of them all is perhaps the most important. The new women’s World Cup champion will be Indian. Then, there’s looking ahead to next year’s Candidates tournament, at which Divya and Humpy are now guaranteed their spots. The likes of R Vaishali and Harika could also plausibly be there, given their performances in recent times. It is truly a sign of the times that the general reaction to there potentially being four Indians in the Candidates tournament is just a shrug of the shoulders rather than awe.
That is where Indian chess is different to other sports in the country at the moment. Elite performance has now become more or less a guarantee. Two of those elite performers now have a day off, and then they’ll battle over the weekend to bring a coveted title back home. It’s heading to the similar geographical location.
The trophy may head to Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh after this weekend. To borrow from a famous sports broadcaster, the winner at the end of the day will (again) be Indian chess.
