FIDE Women’s World Cup | 'Calm Divya committed fewer mistakes': Anand

Indiarsquos moves on the chess board continue to script a story that the gamersquos young achievers can narrate to their grandkids as tales of valour in mental combat On Monday teenager Divya Deshmukh 19 added another chapter to this with her World Cup win outwitting the seasoned Koneru Humpy in a tiebreaker in the final at Batumi Georgia to emerge as the new queen of Indian chessFivetime world champion Viswanathan Anand believes Divyarsquos win has not only helped the womenrsquos game share centrestage with the men led by world champion D Gukesh but has also added to the growing stature of womenrsquos chess in India championed by Humpyrsquos success over the years and the Olympiad gold last yearIn an interview with midday on Wednesday Anand doffed his hat to Deshmukh Humpy and the rising stature of Indian womenrsquos chessEdited excerpts from the interviewAn allIndia final at the womenrsquos World Cup How special is thatItrsquos definitely a nice thing Itrsquos great that our veterans like Humpy can still play so well to reach the final Itrsquos also nice that a youngster won the World CupIndiarsquos Divya Deshmukh with the winnerrsquos trophy and medal in Batumi Georgia on Monday PicFIDEDivyarsquos win made her a GM as well only the 4th Indian woman to achieve thisWe have seen Indiarsquos men having spectacular results for twothree years now Gukesh Praggnanandhaa everyone has had their breakthroughs The women in a sense didnrsquot have that But now after the Olympiad gold last year and this result with both Divya and Humpy qualifying for the Candidates Divya becoming a Grand Master it will hopefully get India talking about womenrsquos chessWas the Olympiad win a catalyst for womenrsquos chess in IndiaHumpy has been playing at the top of womenrsquos chess for quite some time She played the World Championship a couple of times but the Olympiad was the first team achievement and coincidentally both our men and women won in the same city Budapest Subsequently Humpy has had great results and now for Divya this is I think the best result she has had since the OlympiadTo what would you attribute so many major title wins for India in such a short periodI think itrsquos a combination of factors that all parts of the Indian chess community the federation fans media and the academies have come together I have done my bit through WACA WestBridge Anand Chess Academy Most of our youngsters have excellent access to coaches sponsorship Divya attended a lot of classes at WACA We have worked a lot with Gukesh and Pragg Hopefully thatrsquos benefitted them allHow do you analyse Divyarsquos run at the World Cup considering she was not the favourite at the outsetThatrsquos one of the things about knockouts You donrsquot really know how itrsquos going to go But Divya managed to upset Chinese GM Zhu Jiner in the prequarters She then beat Harika Dronavalli in the quarterfinals Tan Zhongyi in the semis then defeated Humpy That cannot be a coincidence Four strong opponents in a row also suggests that Divya has made a leap and performed to her full potentialWhat do you feel are Divyarsquos strengthsI think recently she has improved her opening preparation that kind of showed in this tournament and she is more levelheaded You could see that a lot of the games were decided by blunders on the participants But Divya committed the fewest mistakes so she was also consistent thereDid Divya also handle the tiebreaker pressure betterItrsquos difficult from the outside to isolate one factor I think itrsquos a bit of everything Divya played a lot of good moves So therersquos that consistency she brought to her game She was calmer Humpy had a very normal position at move 40 She could have made a draw and it could have gone to Game Three but suddenly she did something which suggested she had lost her bearings and it was game overDo you feel womenrsquos chess has found the consistency it has been striving forObviously Irsquom very happy for the women I have always felt India can succeed globally in both the men and womenrsquos game Irsquom happy that the womenrsquos game in India is now getting some momentum and I hope it continues For me the dream scenario will be that after this result and the Olympiad success a lot more young girls take to chessHow is the chess world reacting to Indiarsquos dominanceThe world has noticed and considers India as one of the leading chess countries I think itrsquos broadly accepted now In fact by many measures we are the strongest In the menrsquos game I can say that we have top players and are one of the top teams but we are one of the youngest teams as well In the womenrsquos game I think now India is starting to challenge topranked China though China still has a stronger womenrsquos team than us The womenrsquos world champion is Chinese Ju Wenjun so therersquos a very interesting rivalry that could come out of this