Divya Deshmukh becomes the FIDE World Junior Girls Chess Champion

Divya Deshmukh won the World Junior Chess Championship 2024 title in the girls category in Gandhinagar on Thursday. 

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Divya Deshmukh defeated Krasteva Beloslava of Bulgaria in the final round to emerge as the clear champion. 101 players from 27 countries participating in the Champions, Divya and Krasteva are three of the top 20 junior girls according to FIDE ratings. A win has guaranteed the top spot for the third-placed Indian. 

Divya Deshmukh defeated partner Sachi Jain

The International Master (IM) took her points tally to nine after defeating fellow Indian Sachi Jain in the final round. The 18-year-old had taken a lead of half a point over Armenia's Mariam Mkrtchyan.

Divya retained the sole lead in the last five remaining rounds in the Open and Girls categories. She started as a strong favorite with 5.5 points. She remained undefeated throughout the tournament and won her first World Junior Girls Chess Championship title.

Divya holds International Master title

Divya Deshmukh (born 9 December 2005) is an Indian chess player who holds the International Master (IM) title. IM Divya is the 2022 Women's Chess Champion of India and 2023 Asian Women's Chess Champion. 

Divya, playing with white pieces in the final round, had a good start from the opening and had a great opportunity to pull ahead. Thereafter, a few mistakes saw her squander the initiative at the mid-game stage.

But, Krasteva made few mistakes of her own in the end game and handed the advantage right back to Divya, who seized the initiative this time around with a decent accuracy of 92.2 percent and pocketed the World championships title.

Divya is now the fourth Indian women's player to win the title at these U20 championships after Humpy Koneru (2001), Harika Dronavalli (2008) and Soumya Swaminathan (2009).

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Mkrtchyan Mariam clinched silver

In other results, Mkrtchyan Mariam of Armenia posted a victory over Rakshitta Ravi of India to clinch the silver medal. This loss meant that Rakshitta was relegated from a medal-position to the fifth spot with a score of 7.5/8.