Divya Deshmukh off to jittery start in FIDE World Cup, faces uphill task to avoid first-round exit

Indian Grandmaster Divya Deshmukh was off to a shaky start on the opening day of the 2025 FIDE World Cup in Goa on Saturday, losing to Greece' Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis despite playing as white. Divya had won the Women's World Cup in Batumi, Georgia in July and was granted a wildcard entry into the 'Open' World Cup, where she is the lone female competitor.

And while the 19-year-old had an impressive run in the FIDE Grand Swiss in Uzbekistan's Samarkand last month, she faces the possibility of getting knocked out of the World Cup in the very first round after resigning in 41 moves in the first Classical game on Saturday.

The contest began with an Indian game opening and witnessed pieces get knocked off early, with a bishop exchange in the 14th move. Both Divya and Stamatis continued to attack one another setting up a queen exchange by Move 27. Divya, however, couldn't capitalise on the Greek GM's mistakes and made a few blunders of her own (31. Rb3), with the game steadily slipping out of her grasp.

More from Chess

Divya faces uphill task to save campaign on Sunday

Divya now faces an uphill task on Sunday in order to keep her hopes of going the distance in the tournament alive. Not only does she have to beat Stamatis in the second Classical game with black pieces to level the scores, she will also have to triumph in the subsequent rapid and blitz tie-breaks to advance to the second round.

The Indian trio of Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa – seeded first, second and third respectively – have received a bye for the first round of the tournament, as have GMs Vincent Keymer, Anish Giri and other top-50 players in the tournament.

Among the other Indians in action on Saturday besides Divya, Neelash Saha, Aronyak Ghosh, Himal Gusain and G.B. Harshvardhan also ended up on the losing side. The likes of Raunak Sadhwani, Leon Mendonca, S.L. Narayanan, Karthik Venkataraman and Diptayan Ghosh settled for draws while V Pranav, M Pranesh and Surya Shekhar Ganguly emerged triumphant in Game 1.