NAGPUR: International Master (IM) Divya Deshmukh bowed out of the World Cup, but with her head held high at Baku in Azerbaijan on Sunday.
Up against world no. 3 and second seed Russian Grandmaster (GM) Aleksandra Goryachkina, playing under the FIDE flag, Nagpur's 17-year-old IM Divya held the best in the business with her white pieces but went down fighting while defending with black to lose the exciting third-round match 0.5-1.5.
While Divya's journey in the FIDE World Cup ended in the pre-quarterfinal stage, she was among the best 16 women masters in the world. Though Divya was 157 rating points below Aleksandra, the reigning Asian champion forced the fourth highest rated woman in chess history and three-time Russian champion to split the point in their pre-quarterfinal match.
In the opening game of the match played on Saturday, Divya came under severe time pressure after the experienced and 2557 Elo Aleksandra played uniquely while mixing English and Catalan openings with her white pieces. In the 28-move first game, which lasted for around four hours, Divya took over 15 minutes on the 13th move, but played a bit inaccurately.
Divya took time to sort the opening hurdle, and played inaccurately thrice within six moves, and committed a mistake while pushing her Knight back instead of bringing the Rook to the centre on the 16th turn. Despite Divya's effort to stretch the game further, she was under severe time pressure and was left with no option but to resign.
Starting with white pieces in the second game on Sunday, the 2400 Elo Divya tried all the tricks while trying to be aggressive, but the experienced Aleksandra played defensively well enough to keep the proceedings at par and the marathon contest ended in a draw after 59 moves.
"Yesterday's game was not good. The opening was unknown to me, so a lot of time was spent and eventually I came under time pressure. Today's game was good. I played accurately and she defended very well. Both of us didn't commit mistakes as such and the game headed towards a draw," Divya told TOI while explaining how she played with a positive mindset and shared a point with Aleksandra despite losing the opening game.
Besides the second seeded women GM, Divya shared the stage with world champion Magnus Carlsen. She was happy when Carlsen came to watch their game but didn't get distracted. On her debut at the World Cup and overall experience, Divya said, "I quite liked the atmosphere, and it has been a huge learning experience for me. It has been an amazing opportunity for me with all the top players playing and just being in the same room, and I tried to make the best of it. Reaching here itself was a dream come true."
