Divya Deshmukh is the new women's chess World Cup winner, after she beat Koneru Humpy in the tie-breaks in the final on Monday evening to win the crown. In the process, Divya also became India's 88th Grandmaster -- just the fourth Indian woman to achieve that title.
A string of inaccuracies in the second rapid game eventually resulted in Humpy being a pawn down in a rook endgame that was eventually only going to end one way, and then the veteran resigned on move 75 to give the youngster the title. Tears flowed from Divya after the win, as she took in everything that was happening, and then had a warm embrace with her mother, on the biggest day of her career yet
In the third edition of the tournament, Divya follows Alexandra Kosteniuk and Aleksandra Goryachkina as the players to have won this title. Both Divya and Humpy had already confirmed their spot in next year's Women's Candidates tournament by winning their respective semifinals to reach the final.
"It definitely means a lot. There's a lot more to achieve. I'm hoping this is just the start," Divya said on FIDE's official broadcast after she was crowned the champion.
Once again, just like in her fourth round match against Zhu Jiner, it was a rook endgame that Divya had to convert, and just like in that game, she threatened to let a promising position slip. Twice she was given advantages by Humpy's inaccuracies, and twice she didn't find the accurate follow-ups to finish the game off there. eventually though, Humpy self-inflicted more damage on herself on move 69 with a pawn push, that was over-ambitious, and ignored the threats to her own position by Divya's pawn, which was on the verge of promotion. This time, Divya made no mistakes, and six moves later, Humpy resigned.
"I definitely need to learn endgames better," Divya joked after she won the game. "I'm sure at some point in that game, I messed it up. I need time to process this."
After two fairly tame draws in the classical games, there wasn't much to separate the players in the two rapid games that were played in the tie-breaks either. Divya played the first game with the white pieces, and clearly didn't achieve what she had set out to, as Humpy got a comfortable position out of the opening with no threats. Divya tried to push her way through to a result in that game, but 81 moves later, the players agreed to a draw.
Game 2 was heading towards a similar story as well, as both players were very high on accuracy -- touching around 99% -- around move 40. However, there were a slew of inaccuracies after that, which eventually led Divya to becoming the champion and a grandmaster.
"I think it was fate that I get the grandmaster title this way. Before this tournament, I didn't even have one norm," she said. "Before this tournament, I was just looking for where I could achieve one norm, and now I am a grandmaster."
You can relive the rapid tie-breaks as it happened, in our live blog below.