Strong field: The line-up for Women’s Candidates.
| Photo Credit: FIDE
There is much to look forward to for India in the Candidates tournament (open), to be held at Toronto in April. Out of the eight contestants — who will battle it out to earn the right to challenge the reigning World chess champion Ding Liren — three are Indians.
But it is not just R. Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi and D. Gukesh who will be making moves under the Indian flag in Canada. Koneru Humpy and R. Vaishali will compete in the Women’s Candidates tournament.
First time
It is for the first time that both the qualifying events in the open and women’s sections are being held simultaneously. Vaishali qualified for the tournament by winning the Women’s Grand Swiss, while Humpy, a former World rapid champion, made it because of her rating.
Humpy is of course an experienced campaigner, having competed for the World championship before, but this is going to be the most important tournament yet in the career of Vaishali, the elder sister of Praggnanandhaa.
Russians Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina (the winner and the runner-up of the Women’s Grand Prix), China’s Lei Tingjie (the runner-up at the last World championship) and Tan Zhongyi (third place at Women’s Grand Swiss), Nurgyul Salimova of Bulgaria (the runner-at the World Cup), Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine (third place at the Women’s World Cup) and complete the line-up.
The winner will take on the reigning World champion Ju Wenjun of China. The Candidates is a double-round event, with a combined prize fund of 750,000 euros.