Humpy, Divya maintain agency with attracts in semifinal first video games

Grandmaster Koneru Humpy held China’s Tingjie Lei to a cushty draw with black items, whereas Divya Deshmukh’s strong defence annoyed former ladies’s world champion Zhongyi Tan within the first recreation of the FIDE Ladies’s World Cup semifinals right here on Tuesday (July 22, 2025).

With two Indians and two Chinese language making up the final-four, the Asian dominance in ladies’s chess stays undisputed. But it surely’s now a battle of nerves for the ultimate two spots.

From the look of it, the 2 Indians have had an excellent starting drawing with black and within the return recreation each will play as white.

If the outcomes stay tied on this $691,250 occasion, then the video games of shorter period might be performed to find out the winner.

Additionally, three spots are up for grabs for the following Ladies’s Candidates Match— making certain a minimum of one Indian will qualify.

Divya was the primary to get off the hook towards Zhongyi Tan who boasts of a exceptional resume as a lady chess participant.

The previous world champion didn’t discover any flaws in Divya’s opening repertoire as the sport launched into a queen’s gambit declined opening path.

Divya exchanged items virtually at will and Zhongyi additionally didn’t appear averse to equalising towards an energetic place for black forces.

Ultimately the gamers had been left with only a rook and a minor piece every with three pawns on the identical flank when nothing may have occurred apart from a drawn end result.

India’s high lady participant, Humpy, got here up with an enormous opening shock for Lei that has not been seen at high stage chess recurrently.

The Chinese language didn’t know what hit her as early as on transfer 4 and even her finest assets weren’t sufficient to fight Humpy into equalising.

The gamers fought on publish the trade of queens within the center recreation however the presence of reverse colored Bishops ensured that Humpy was by no means in any hazard.

Outcomes (Semifinal Recreation 1): TIngjie Lei (CHN) drew with Koneru Humpy (IND); Zhongyi Tan (CHN) drew with Divya Deshmukh (IND).