Nagpur Girl Divya Deshmukh making waves

A 19-year-old chess prodigy Divya Deshmukh, from Nagpur who moved the world No 1 Hou Yifan in 74-Move master class has continued to make waves with her performance in the “ Federation Internationale des Echecs”, an International Chess Federation.

Divya is a chess player who holds the title of Woman Grandmaster and International Master. She is a three-time gold medalist at the Olympiad.

The 2025 tournament marked the expansion of the Women’s Rugby World Cup for the first time and included 16 teams which were hosted across eight venues and cities throughout England.

Divya has consistently delivered outstanding performances on  big stages. She claimed three individual gold medals across Chess Olympiads, added titles at the Asian Championship, World Youth, and World Junior events, and notably won the  the 2023 Asian Women’s Chess Championship in Almaty(Kazakhstan).

Additionally, her successes in rapid tournaments like Tata Steel India and Sharjah Challengers in 2023–24 brought to light her versatility across time formats too. Deshmush has recently been in the headlines as the teen chess star gave India another big reason to celebrate  at the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025 by becoming only the second Indian woman ever to reach the semi-finals.

Divya was born in Nagpur on December 09,2005 to doctor parents– Jitendra Deshmukh and Namratha Deshmukh. She received her early education from Bhavans Bhagwandas Purohit Vidya Mandir.

She became India’s 21st woman chess Grandmaster in 2021. She won the 2022 Women’s Indian Chess Championship. She also won an individual bronze medal at the 2022 Chess Olympiad. She was also part of the gold medal-winning FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2020 team. As of December 2024, she was the 2nd ranked woman chess player in India.

In 2023, in Almaty, she won the Asian Women’s Chess Championship. She then finished first in the women’s rapid section of the Tata Steel India Chess Tournament, despite being the bottom seed. At the tournament, she defeated Harika Dronavalli, Vantika Agrawal, Koneru Humpy, Savita Shri B, Irina Krush, and Nino Batsiashvili, drew against Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjum and Anna Ushenina, and suffered her only loss to Polina Shuvalova.

In May 2024, Deshmukh was the Sharjah Challengers champion, a large open tournament, win  that earned her a spot in the Sharjah Masters the following year. In June, she became 2024 FIDE World U20 Girls Chess Champion. She became the fourth Indian to win the World Junior Girls’ title after Koneru Humpy in 2001, Harika Dronavalli in 2008, and Soumya Swaminathan in 2009. Needing a win in the final round, she defeated Bulgaria’s third seed Beloslava Krasteva in a five-hour marathon battle to secure 10 points out of a possible 11 and won the gold.

In September 2024, she won the team gold as well as the individual gold medals at the 45 th Chess Olympiad in 2024.