FIDE Women's World Cup: Koneru Humpy marches into semifinals after draw with China's Yuxin Song

Koneru Humpy marches into FIDE Women's World Cup semifinals after draw with China's Yuxin Song

Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy played out a fine counterattacking game to hold International Master Yuxin Song of China and march into the semifinals of the FIDE Women's Chess World Cup Batumi, Georgia on Sunday. Having won the first game with white pieces, Humpy was only a draw away from reaching the last four stage, and she achieved it after a keenly contested second game against the Chinese.

With fourth place assured, Humpy will get two chances to reach the top three, which will also guarantee her a place at next Women's Candidates' tournament for which the top three from here qualify. The all-Indian duel between Grandmaster D Harika and IM Divya Deshmukh ended in a draw which means that the two will battle it out in the tie-break games scheduled for Monday.

Grandmaster R Vaishali ran out of luck as she lost from slightly better prospects against former world women's champion Zhongyi Tan of China. Vaishali who had drawn the first game lost by the same score as Song.

Apart from Tan, top seed Tingjie Lei of China also made it to the semifinals at the expense of Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia. Yuxin Song had to win to stay in the hunt against Humpy and her preferred choice was the Jobava's London, an opening that is fancied these days by many strong Grandmasters. Humpy equalised without much ado but then sacrificed two pawns in tandem to give white some hopes.

However, Song's pawn structure was really broken with three pawns standing on a sole file and Humpy found her counter play in the centre. Recovering the pawns Humpy was happy to lead the game to a level rook and pawns endgame. Song tried in vain for 53 moves before splitting the point.

Vaishali took her chances in the middle game and got the dynamic balance she was looking for. However, resourceful as she is, Tan capitalised on an unforced error to gain the upper hand. Vaishali again got some chances according to the computer but it was always a tall order to find all correct moves.

Harika tried safely as white and like the previous game the players reached a drawn rook and pawns endgame. Interestingly this is the only match that goes into tie-break games of shorter duration which also means that there will be two Indians in the semifinals.

Quarterfinal results

Koneru Humpy (Ind) beat Yuxin Song (Chn) 1.5-0.5; Nana Dzagnidze (Geo) lost to Tingjie Lei (Chn) 0-2; R Vaishali (Ind) lost to Tan Zhongyi (Chn) 0.5-1.5; Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with D Harika (Ind) 1-1 goes to tiebreaker