Divya Deshmukh | |
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![]() Deshmukh in 2025 | |
Country | ![]() |
Born | [1] Nagpur, Maharashtra, India | 9 December 2005
Title | Grandmaster (2025) |
FIDE rating | 2478 (August 2025) |
Peak rating | 2501 (October 2024) |
Divya Deshmukh (born 9 December 2005) is an Indian chess grandmaster. [2] She has won two gold medals and one bronze medal at the Women's Chess Olympiad. In 2025, she won the Women's Chess World Cup and qualified for the Women's Candidates Tournament 2026. She has also won golds at the Asian Championship, the World Junior Championship and the World Youth Championship. [3]
Deshmukh was born in Nagpur in a Marathi family. [4] Her parents Namrata and Jitendra Deshmukh are both doctors. [5] She studied at Bhavan's Bhagwandas Purohit Vidya Mandir during her schooling days. [6]
In 2020, Deshmukh was part of the gold medal-winning Indian team at the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad. [7] In 2022, she won the National Women's Chess Championship. [8] She won an individual bronze medal at the 2022 Women's Chess Olympiad. [7]
In 2023, Deshmukh won the Asian Continental Women. [9] She came first in the Tata Steel Chess India Women's Rapid, despite being the lowest-rated player in the field. During the tournament, she defeated Harika Dronavalli, Vantika Agrawal, Koneru Humpy, Savitha Shri B, Irina Krush, and Nino Batsiashvili. She also drew against World Champion Ju Wenjun and Anna Ushenina, and suffered her only loss to Polina Shuvalova. [10] [11]
In January 2024 Deshmukh played, in the Challengers-section, in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024. In May, Deshmukh was the winner of Sharjah Challengers, a large open tournament win that earned her a spot in the Sharjah Masters the following year. [12] In June, she became the 2024 World U20 Chess Champion. She became the fourth Indian to win the title after Humpy Koneru in 2001, Harika Dronavalli in 2008, and Soumya Swaminathan in 2009. [3] Needing a win in the final round, she was the victor against Bulgaria’s third seed Beloslava Krasteva in a five-hour marathon battle to secure 10 points and won the gold. [5]
She helped team India win the gold medal at the 45th Chess Olympiad, scoring 9.5/11 on Board 3 with a performance rating of 2608. She also earned an individual gold medal for the best performance on her board. [13]
In January 2025 Deshmukh played, in the Challengers-section, in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2025. In June, she played for the Hexamind Chess Club at the World Rapid and Blitz Team Chess Championships held in London. In the blitz semifinals she defeated women’s world no. 1 Hou Yifan in a 74-move rook-vs-bishop endgame, marking her first-ever victory over the Chinese grandmaster. This was one of her 6 wins across 8 blitz games, earning her a performance rating of 2606 and the team's bronze medal finish in the blitz event. The team also won the silver in the rapid section due to her performance scoring 8 out of 12 points with a performance rating of 2420. Deshmukh also won an individual bronze. [14]
Deshmukh was seeded 15th in the Women's Chess World Cup 2025. She defeated 2nd seed Zhu Jiner in the fourth round, 10th seed Harika Dronavalli in the quarterfinals, and 3rd seed Tan Zhongyi in the semifinals. [15] In the final, she defeated 4th seed Koneru Humpy in tiebreaks to win the tournament. [16] With this win, she earned the grandmaster title, which is directly awarded to the winner of the World Cup without requiring the usual three norms. She became India's 88th grandmaster and the fourth Indian woman to become a grandmaster. [17] [18] Additionally, she qualified for the Women's Candidates Tournament 2026. [19]
Seed | Name | Game 1 | Game 2 | Tiebreaker 1 | Tiebreaker 2 | Total |
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15 | ![]() | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 2½ |
4 | ![]() | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1½ |