Nagpur: Making the most of her favourite chess format, World junior champion Divya Deshmukh made it to the FIDE Women’s World Cup semifinals in Batumi, Georgia, on Monday. Nagpur’s 19-year-old International Master (IM) knocked down veteran Grandmaster D Harika in the first set of quarterfinal tiebreaks played in Divya’s favourite rapid format. The win saw her take a bold step towards qualifying for the Women’s Candidates tournament.Divya won both her games played with the white and black pieces to clinch the quarterfinal 3-1, a day after the compatriots drew two of their classical games.Divya was overwhelmed with emotions after winning the second tiebreak game, which at one stage was a losing contest for her. She said, “Happy with the way I played today. I think the preparation had a lot of role in the first rapid game today. I would like to thank my coach for this. The last game didn’t go the way I thought. In the second game, Harika played quite well, I am just glad it’s over.”In the day’s opening game played in the rapid format, Divya utilised her opening advantage with white pieces well. Divya opted for the Giuoco Piano Game with Center attack, utilising her pawn. On the 22nd and 24th turns, Harika made a couple of dubious moves, and Divya found her attacking weapon. On the 33rd move, Divya snatched Harika’s queen by exchanging her rook to take a firm grip on the contest. She converted the queen vs rook endgame and took the lead by winning the contest in 57 moves.In the following game with black pieces, Divya chose the Slav Defense of Modern Line. After Divya played a couple of questionable moves, Harika made a mistake on the 18th turn. Despite that, the game remained equal with a couple of Harika’s bishops and Divya’s knight and bishop. A 60th move by Divya confused Harika, and she made back-to-back blunders on the 61st and 63rd turns.Divya was severely low on time and on the verge of losing the contest, but she started making her moves fast and succeeded in going a pawn up. When Divya made her winning 76th move by advancing her pawn, Harika resigned.From Tuesday, the semifinal battles will be played between India and China. Divya will face China’s World No. 8 Tan Zhongyi, and Koneru Humpy will be up against top seed Lei Tingjie. With the top three finishers qualifying for the Women’s Candidates tournament, both Humpy and Divya can earn the right to fight in the event from where the World Champion Challenger will be identified. On her plans against Tan in the semifinals, Divya said, “I always wanted to avoid tiebreaks, but it’s not in my hands. I just want to forget everything and eat now. After that, I will start preparing.”On who was the toughest opponent in the World Cup so far, Divya said, “Zhu was the toughest opponent. Winning against Zhu in tiebreaks gave me confidence, and today it reflected in my play.”
