CHENNAI: R Vaishali produced an attacking masterclass to take down Divya Deshmukh in the ninth round of the women's Candidates in Cyprus on Wednesday. The Indian duo, part of a leading group of five out of the eight player-field, knew they would have a significant edge of going into the last five rounds with a win.
So the lines very soon got very sharp. Deshmukh, who has had to fight to stay in the contest after less than ideal openings, had parity when the contest entered the middlegame. It's where the older of the two Indians made the first in a series of dazzling moves to stage an infiltration. Vaishali, though, was helped along the way by the reigning World Cup winner as one inaccuracy set the dominoes to fall.
White was already strong and had some space to grab control of the centre when Deshmukh dropped the c pawn. The eval bar jumped from 0.8 to 1.5. On the 23rd move, Vaishali sacrificed her rook, a brilliancy on the board. She followed that with a couple of passed pawns moving up the board. Deshmukh tried to firefight as she tried to generate some counterplay by pushing the h pawn on the 29th move. But Vaishali knew she had this line locked down. Two moves later, Vaishali, who featured in the 2024 edition of the Candidates as well, played Rb7. Another rook sacrifice, another brilliancy. Deshmukh gave up the ghost as she was in a checkmating net.
So, Vaishali, who began the tournament slowly (four draws and a loss), has all of a sudden won three of her last four games. She now has 5.5 points. Her next opponent, though, is Anna Muzychuk, one of the players challenging at the top of the leaderboard.
Results (Rd 9): Open: Matthias Bluebaum drew with Javokhir Sindarov, Anish Giri bt Fabiano Caruana, R Praggnanandhaa drew with Wei Yi.
Women: R Vaishali bt Divya Deshmukh, Zhu Jiner bt Kateryna Lagno, Tan Zhongyi drew with Anna Muzychuk, Aleksandra Goryachkina drew with Bibisara Assaubayeva.