Women’s World Blitz Championship 2024: Vaishali remains unbeaten, qualifies for knockouts with 9.5/11

Grandmaster R. Vaishali was class apart on Tuesday as she qualified for the knockout stage of the Women’s World Blitz Championship 2024 after finishing on top of the leaderboard.

She remained unbeaten, finishing with 9.5 points, one full point ahead of the second place. She drew three while pocketing as many as eight wins.

Vaishali handed losses to some of the biggest names in women’s chess — Georgia’s Nana Dzagnidze, Poland’s Polina Shuvalova and defending World Blitz Champion Russia’s Valentina Gunina — to take the top spot.

“I’m very happy with today’s performance. Tomorrow will be a big day. Honestly, it (the performance) was completely unexpected. I was not expecting the result like how it went today. Tomorrow, I have to be ready and prepare well and then see,” she said.

On her dramatic match against Gunina, where she found herself under extreme time pressure, she said, ”You have nothing to think, you keep playing your moves. That was a very bad time management in that game (by me). She (Gunina) was ahead on the clock and on the board, she was a full pawn up but I kept playing.” Vaishali virtually had seven seconds for each of her 23 moves.

“Towards the end, I offered a draw with the rook-knight 3 versus 3. I think she wanted to play but her clock fell and that’s how I won the game,” explained Vaishali.

Vaishali said there were many players stronger than her in Blitz and that she was just lucky to have led the field by one full point.

“I don’t think I’m a great blitz player, honestly. There are many more strong players here. I think, today, I was lucky in many games and it just worked out.”

Vaishali was also the lone Indian to qualify for the second stage after newly crowned World Rapid Champion, Koneru Humpy agonisingly missed out on the top eight, finishing in ninth place with 8.0/11.

AS IT HAPPENED | WORLD BLITZ CHAMPIONSHIP 2024, DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS

Barring China’s Lei Tingjie, who finished second behind Vaishali with a return of 8.5 points, all other qualified players ended up with equal points as Humpy. However, the Indian had the worst tiebreaks which saw her finish just outside the qualification spot.

Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal and Harika Dronavalli finished 18th, 19th and 22nd respectively with seven points each in 11 rounds.

Priyan Nutakki and Padmini Rout were 71st and 72nd with five points in a 108-player field.

Among Indians, Sahithi Varshini had the worst finish with 4.5 points, placing herself 76th.

Vaishali will face Zhu Jiner in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.

In the Open section, none of the Indians even made it to the top 20 with R. Praggnanandhaa having the best finish at 24th place.