It was a roller coaster contest as India’s woman Grandmaster Vantika Agrawal broke through the defences of former world champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine in the tiebreaks of the second round at the FIDE Women's World Cup. However, Padmini Rout lost to another former world champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk of Switzerland, to crash out from the tournament.
In a gritty performance, Vantika held her nerve to secure a 4.5-3.5 win after the scores were tied 3-3 following multiple rounds of tiebreaks. The two players won one game each in the classical contest, forcing a series of rapid tiebreakers. Vantika struck first with the black pieces in the rapid format, only for Ushenina to level the scores again at 2-2.
Further draws pushed the contest into five minutes per player games with a three-second increment. It was in this high-pressure situation that Vantika exploited a crucial blunder from Ushenina to edge ahead and eventually progress to Round Three. The Indian will clash against Kateryna Lagno, a former Ukrainian prodigy who now plays for Russia, in the third round.
Padmini, however, could not get the better of Kosteniuk in the rapid tiebreaker after winning the first game. Kosteniuk needed a win on demand to equalise the scores and she did that after Padmini missed her chances. In the fourth set of games, Padmini lost the first game with white and was losing the second one too when Kosteniuk decided to repeat moves and took a draw as it was enough for her to make it to the next round.
There are still five Indians left in the last 32 stage of this tournament, which gives the top three finishers a chance to make it to the Women’s candidates’ tournament slated in 2026. While Koneru Humpy will play against Klaudia Kulon of Poland in the third round, D Harika will be the favourite against Stavroula Tsolakidou of Greece. R Vaishali, on the other, will face a formidable opponent, Carrisa Yip of United States, and Divya Deshmukh is pitted against Teodora Injac of Serbia.
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