NAGPUR: A year after becoming Nagpur's first senior national women's chess champion, Divya Deshmukh repeated the title winning act at Kolhapur on Thursday.
In the 48th National Women's Chess Championship, the 17-year-old Divya remained unbeaten and emerged as the queen of 64 squares in India for the second successive year. Last year at Bhubaneshwar, Divya became the first teenager after India's best woman master Koneru Humpy to win the senior national title.
At Kolhapur, in the 11-round, 11-day event, Divya posted victories in nine rounds and drew three boards to lift the national trophy collecting 9.5 points.
In the 11th and final round, second seed and India No. 8 Divya kept her cool from the white side of dubious Modern defence to get the better of Olympian and 12th ranked Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa (8.5 points), and garner a full point. With this win, Divya registered a table-top finish and pipped WGM Mary Ann Gomes (9) by just half-a-point. Top seed Vantika Agrawal, who lost to Divya in the fifth round, finished third with 8.5 points.
On her way to lifting the title, city's first Women Grand Master (WGM) Divya, who started the event with an Elo of 2347, gave a performance rating of 2416 and earned a total of 13.8 rating points.
In a field of 104 players, where India's top-six women players were missing, Divya won a prize money of Rs6 lakh. Divya's win over the then leader Mary Ann Gomes in the eighth round was vital, as after taking the lead the city girl didn't look back and brought home her second successive women's national crown. In her senior national debut in 2019, Divya had become the youngest to win a bronze medal.
