Chess tosca: only one Russian woman remained at the World Cup

Only one representative of Russia, Ekaterina Lagno, reached the 1/8 finals of the Women's World Cup, which is taking place in Batumi these days. The reigning Russian heavyweight champion has passed Vantika Agrawal and Anastasia Avramida and will now compete with another Indian representative, Harika Dronavalli. But the winner of the 2023 World Cup, Alexandra Goryachkina, unexpectedly left the tournament in the second round, losing in a tiebreak to Meruert Kamalidenova. After that, the chess player from Kazakhstan knocked out another Russian, the under—20 world champion Anna Shukhman, and may well repeat the success of Nurgul Salimova two years ago.

Eight out of ten

The World Cup is traditionally held according to the knockout system: each round consists of two games with classic time control with color change and a tie-break if necessary. There are usually enough sensations in this format, but not this time. Eight chess players, who were seeded in the top 10, overcame the first three rounds at once. Only Goryachkina (number six) and fifth-seeded Anna Muzychuk were unlucky, losing to Chinese Yuxin Song. However, the defeat of the Ukrainian is hardly a sensation: the 19-year-old representative of China has shown strong results in the last two years and has already managed to break into the top 30 of the FIDE rating.

But Goryachkina lost to 19-year-old Meruert Kamalidenova, who is at the end of the top hundred of the rating (2323). However, the strongest Russian chess player of recent years definitely shouldn't be upset. Alexandra has already completed the main task of this cycle, when she was able to qualify for the 2026 candidates tournament through the FIDE Grand Prix. Now she can prepare for it in a calm mode and experiment. For example, it recently became known that Goryachkina will play in the open "Big Swiss" with men in Samarkand from September 3 to 15 (and not in the women's section).

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Alexandra's opponent in the 2023 World Cup final, Nurgul Salimova, also completed only one lap. The Bulgarian lost to Bela Khotenashvili from Georgia in the second round. It should be noted that two representatives of the host country reached the 1/8 finals at once. Lela Javakhishvili (who beat Polina Shuvalova in the third round after two games) will play Yuxin Song, while eighth-seeded Nana Dzagnidze will face Maria Muzychuk.

In the third round, Dzagnidze passed Valentina Gunina in a hard fight. In the first two additional games, as in the main time, the rivals exchanged blows. Then the Georgian chess player took the lead again, and Gunina missed a great chance to even the score and, in the end, even lost (the final score was 4:2 in favor of Nana).

The Lagno Test

Ekaterina Lagno will face 10th seed Harika Dronavalli in the 1/8 finals, and it will be a very serious test. Firstly, the Indian chess player has been showing excellent results over the past two years. Secondly, the Russian won both previous duels in a tie-break, having spent a lot of effort. Moreover, Ekaterina had to win back the order from Vantika Agraval, losing in the first game with classical control. In the tie-break, the first two fastest games also did not reveal the winner, but only both of them ended in a draw. Then Lagno confidently held the draw for black, and white conducted a successful offensive on the royal flank and achieved victory (3.5:2.5 in favor of the Russian champion).

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In the other pairs of the 1/8 finals, China's first-seeded Lei Tingjie will play Umida Omonova from Uzbekistan, and her compatriot Zhu Jin'er (2) will face Divya Deshmukh (15) from India. Another representative of China, Tan Zhongyi (3), will meet with Ukrainian Yulia Osmak (14). The 12th world champion Alexandra Kostenyuk (13), now representing Switzerland, will play with Hampi Koneru from India (4), participant of the 2024 candidates tournament Vaishali Rameshbabu (India) with Kamalidenova (59). If Meruert passes it, then she will have a real opportunity to make it to the 2026 candidates tournament. The participants who took the first or third places will be selected there.