‘Like MS Dhoni in strain moments’: Coach praises 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh after FIDE World Cup win | Cricket Information – Occasions of India

India’s 19-year-old chess prodigy Divya Deshmukh has gained the FIDE Girls’s World Cup in Batumi, Georgia, defeating veteran participant Koneru Humpy in an all-Indian ultimate that went to tie-breakers. Her former coach Srinath Narayanan praised her distinctive expertise and composure below strain, evaluating her capability to deal with essential moments to cricket legend M S Dhoni.Divya grew to become India’s 88th Grandmaster and the fourth lady from the nation to realize this prestigious title. The match victory got here in opposition to 38-year-old Humpy, who has been main Indian ladies’s chess for over twenty years with a number of titles together with World Fast Championships and Asian Video games gold medals.“She’s fairly an aggressive participant. However with time, Divya has change into extra all-round, extra versatile. I feel she’s equally good throughout all of the completely different codecs… Classical, Fast and Blitz,” Srinath informed PTI over cellphone from Chennai.“And her energy is, I feel, turning up in these huge moments, crunch conditions. Like how Mahendra Singh Dhoni used to win the matches within the final over. I noticed one thing related in Divya in these last-round conditions or conditions the place the whole lot was hanging within the high-pressure moments. She used to carry out extremely properly below strain in essential matches.”Srinath, who coached Divya till 2020, first met her on the airport in 2016 when the crew was heading to Turkey for the World U-16 Olympiad.“So, it (affiliation) began round 2018. We met on the World Below-16 Olympiad. The crew was going to Turkey. I used to be the coach of the crew and I met her for the primary time on the airport. She was extremely proficient. And he or she additionally had a sure sort of capability to win these huge video games and tournaments. So, within the very first match that I coached her, she gained an important sport within the final spherical in opposition to Iran,” mentioned Srinath in regards to the Nagpur-based participant whose mother and father are docs.Divya’s spectacular profession contains three gold medals on the Olympiad, a number of gold medals on the Asian Championship, World Junior Championship, and World Youth Championship.“She was, I feel, far more proficient than many of the women. She confirmed that expertise through the World U-16 Olympiad in 2018. After that, through the 2020 On-line Olympiad, Divya was instrumental in our win over China, which was an important sport. And he or she was one of many winners. Submit that, in the identical match, she was additionally profitable within the ultimate in opposition to Russia. Though the match was stopped midway resulting from international web outage and each the groups shared the gold, Divya was clearly one with essentially the most promising place for us in that match.“Between 2020 and 2022, Divya skilled a slowdown in her chess profession as a result of pandemic.“She, I feel, always saved profitable huge tournaments, huge occasions. If something, she solely slowed down round 2020 to 2022 when the pandemic occurred. And he or she would not play in numerous tournaments. So she took a while off and targeted on her research and began catching up with all these issues.”Having certified for the Candidates Event, Srinath believes Divya has the potential to change into a world champion.The victory within the Girls’s World Cup in opposition to established gamers demonstrates her distinctive expertise and willpower within the sport.