CHENNAI: ONE of Divya Deshmukh or Koneru Humpy will feature in next year's women's Candidates, the eight-player double round-robin tournament whose topper will play in the 2026 edition of the women's world Championships. This was confirmed after Humpy's win in the quarterfinal against Yuxin Song on Sunday.
On Monday, Deshmukh joined her senior compatriot in the last four after her tie-break win over D Harika in the women's World Cup in Batumi. The teen, an age-group world champion, continued her fairy tale run in Georgia as she took down another GM. A few days after bringing down the second seed and one of the pre-tournament favourites, China's Zhu Jiner's, she repeated the trick against Harika as she won both the tie-break games.
After the pair of games, she credited her coach 'for the prep'. "I would have to say the preparation had a lot of role in that game (first game of the break with white pieces)," she said. "I would have to thank my coach for that."
Neither player held a clear advantage out of the opening — the eval bar was pretty much level after 20 moves — but the 19-year-old built up an advantage thanks to couple of sharp moves as she punished several of Harika's questionable moves in the middlegame.
A blunder from her — 27. c6 — put the younger Indian in the driver's seat. And it's an advantage she didn't relinquish till Harika resigned. Both players traded major inaccuracies in the second of the two breakers. At one point of time in the endgame, Harika had the chance to win on demand but there were some miscalculations and the IM won a second game in succession. She faces Tan Zhongyi in one of the two semis, while Humpy faces the other Chinese, Lei Tingjie, for a place in the final.