Viswanathan Anand names surprise favourite for Women’s Candidates, puts Divya and Vaishali as dark horses

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand has shared his thoughts on the upcoming FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament 2026, saying the competition looks very close and difficult to predict. The Indian chess legend made his assessment while creating a "tier list" for Chess.com India ahead of the event.

The 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament is scheduled to take place from March 28 to April 16 at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus. The women's section of the event has eight players in the fray, including Indian GMs Divya Deshmukh and R Vaishali. Koneru Humpy was also part of the event, but she withdrew last week due to safety concerns caused by the West Asia conflict.

Humpy had qualified for the Women's Candidates through the Women's Chess World Cup 2025, where she finished runners-up after losing to compatriot Deshmukh in the final. Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine has been named her replacement. Anand had made the predictions before Humpy announced her withdrawal.

Anand picks his favourites

The tier list had all eight players divided into four groups - 'Winner, Top 3, Dark Horse and Difficult." Anand started with Vaishali and placed her in the 'Dark Horse' category. He also put Deshmukh and Russia's Kateryna Lagno in the same category. The former world champion explained why he decided to place Vaishali in the dark horse category.

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"She’s got some very strong qualities. She showed that already last time (where she had) big swings, very bad result. Ended up with a very good final performance. She hasn’t played much. She didn’t play Tata Steel at Wijk aan Zee. She didn’t play Prague Masters either. I’m assuming she’s been working very hard. I don’t know. I have to put somebody in dark horse," Anand said.

Anand then picked Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia and Tan Zhongyi of China in his 'Top 3' and Chinese Zhu Jiner in the 'Winner' category. Kazakhstan's Bibisara Assaubayeva was also slotted in the 'Top 3' by Anand. "Somehow I wanted to put all of them in top three and Dark Horse, but [laughter] uh or somewhere in between, but anyway," Anand added.

"I mean, if she was the rating favourite a few weeks back, let’s put Zhu Jiner as the winner," Anand said as he picked Jiner as his 'Winner' of Women's Candidates 2026.

The winner of the Women's Candidates will challenge the reigning Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun.