R. Vaishali (left) made history by winning the FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2026 in Cyprus with 8.5/14 points, becoming the first Indian woman to do so. | Photo Credit: M. Srinath

After 14 rounds of draining, exacting chess, and a final-round victory over former World Rapid and Blitz champion Kateryna Lagno to win the FIDE Women’s Candidates 2026, Grandmaster R. Vaishali returned home in the early hours of Sunday.

Given the odd hour and restrictions during the Tamil Nadu Assembly election week, the welcome was relatively subdued, though around 50 students from Velammal still turned up at the airport to receive her.

Carrying placards with messages for the newly crowned challenger, they gathered to greet her, cut a cake and pose for photographs. Nearby stood Vaishali’s family. Her father, Rameshbabu, watched quietly from a corner, taking it all in, before Vaishali spotted him, rushed across and posed with her family and the winner’s medal.

For Vaishali, the moment was completion of a full circle.

Back in 2013, as a 12-year-old, she had been in attendance when Viswanathan Anand faced Magnus Carlsen in Chennai for the World Championship title. More than a decade later, she now finds herself on the verge of that same stage.

“It is a dream moment for me. I’m very happy. I’ve followed many World Championship matches, and now I’ll be playing one. I’m really looking forward to it,” Vaishali told Sportstar on her arrival in the city.

The Women’s Candidates remained open almost until the very end, with multiple players still in contention.

Going into the final round, Vaishali needed to beat Lagno, while Bibisara Assaubayeva, who eventually finished second, had to either lose or draw against fellow Indian Divya Deshmukh. Divya held Bibisara, leaving Vaishali needing a win over Lagno to clinch the title that very day.

“Before the tournament, we had worked on different openings, and we had narrowed it down to two that we thought could come up in the final round. As expected, one of them did, and thankfully it worked out,” said Grandmaster M. Pranesh, who travelled with Vaishali as a sparring partner.

The opening was the Sicilian Dragon. Lagno gave up a pawn early to generate attacking chances against Vaishali’s king, but Vaishali defended precisely, stayed calm under pressure and gradually turned the position in her favour, using her bishop actively to keep Lagno’s queen under watch.

“It was a very close tournament. It could have gone either way, and I won the last game, which was very crucial in that situation,” Vaishali said.

Her path to the title had been anything but smooth. Vaishali began with four consecutive draws and then suffered a loss to Zhu Jiner in Round 5. When the two met again in Round 12, Vaishali went in with a one-point lead, only to lose once more. Yet that defeat, paradoxically, would come to be seen by her camp as a turning point rather than a setback.

“The second loss was actually crucial,” said coach R.B. Ramesh. “She went into Round 12 with a one-point lead and then lost to Zhu, which brought them level. I told her to treat it as if she had drawn the game, because she was still in joint lead going into Round 13 against Tan Zhongyi. The idea was to take it positively and move on.”

Almost everyone around Vaishali in Cyprus echoed that view. The loss to Zhu did not derail her campaign. If anything, it released some of the tension that had built up around the burden of leading and allowed her to reset for the final push.

Now comes the biggest match of her career: a World Championship clash against reigning champion Ju Wenjun. The two met at last year’s Norway Chess Women, where their classical game ended in a draw before Vaishali won the Armageddon tiebreak, her first victory over Ju in any format.

“I have played only a few classical games against her, and I’m very excited to face her for the title next,” Vaishali said.

For Ramesh and the team around her, the scale of what lies ahead is still sinking in. Planning, he said, will begin soon, with discussions around building a support team, identifying areas of improvement and deciding the structure of the training camp, likely from the first week of May.

“It will be her first match on such a big stage, and even for all of us it will be a new experience,” Ramesh said. “We will take suggestions from experienced people around us, listen to feedback and then move forward from there.”

Published on Apr 19, 2026