Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Vaishali held former World Champion Tan Zhongyi to a draw in the final of the FIDE Women's Grand Swiss to win the title for the 2025 edition. This saw her become the first Indian to successfully defend the Grand Swiss title and she also became the third Indian after Divya Deshmukh and Koneru Humpy to qulify for the Candidates tournament.
The victory saw Vaishali become the first chess player in history to win back to back Grand Swiss titles. She last won the tournament in 2023 and continued her fine form in the next edition of the competition as well. Notably, the victory over Zhongyi also earned Vaishali a good prize cheque of USD 40,000.
Following the match, Vaishali was asked to pick between her victory in 2023 and 2025. However, the Indian GM stated that it was very hard to chose one between the two.
"It's hard to choose. In 2023, the Grand Swiss victory came at the very right moment, I hadn't played well for a long time, a lot of things fell into place. Again this year was not going well, I was working very hard but somehow the results were not going my way, this win is very crucial," Vaishali said after her victory in the final.
This victory must mean a lot for Vaishali, whose confidence had taken a major hit recently. She had only managed to score just 1.5 points in nine rounds of the Chennai Grand Masters tournament and also lost in quarter-finals of the Women's World Cup to Tan Zhongyi.
"In my previous tournament at Chennai GM I lost seven games, I lost one week in a row, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, then sometimes when I win, I am unstoppable," Vaishali remarked.
"Actually when I lost to Bibisara (Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan) I am happy I did not collapse, I drew the next game and kind of settled in," she said, referring to the eighth-round loss in the Grand Swiss tournament.
Only one seat up for grabs for Candidates
Meanwhile, a total of seven out of eight seats have already been bokked for the Candidates tournament. Apart from the Indian trio, China's Tan Zhongyi and Zhu Jiner and Russia's Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno have sealed their places for the competition and now there is only one seat up for grabs.