Nagpur's Divya wins gold in World Cadet's Chess Meet

Eleven-year-old Divya Deshmukh emerged winner in the the girls' U-12 category at the World Cadets Chess Championship at Pocos de Caldas, Brazil.
In the Under-8 open section, A R Ilamparthi of Tamil Nadu drew his final round game to finish fourth with eight points.
Divya drew with top-seeded compatriot Rakshitta Ravi in the eleventh and final round on Thursday to win the coveted title. She scored a total of 9.5 points to give India its only medal in the championship this year.
The Nagpur girl with an ELO rating of 1993, started as the third seed, won eight games and drew three rounds for the triumph. Rakshitta Ravi finished eighth with seven points. Bhagyashree Patil finished 15th with 6.5 points. Dhayana Patil scored 6 points to finish 18th.

It is Divya's second world title after her victory in the under-10 World Youth Chess Championship in Durban in 2014. She had previously won the U-10 Asian blitz event in early 2014 and won the rapid and standard formats in the Asian Schools Championship in 2012. Also, in 2013, she had become the youngest woman FIDE Master.
She had won gold in the blitz section, silver in rapid and bronze in the classical version in the Asian Youth Championship held in Uzbekistan in April last.

Divya, daughter of gynaecologist couple Jitendra and Namrata Deshmukh trains under Chennai-based GM R B Ramesh at his academy "Chess Gurukul" here.

Heaping praise on the lass, Ramesh said, "Divya is a very hard working player. She has been coming to Chess Gurukul for the past two-three years or so."
"She is very confident about herself and that helps her play freely on the board. This title will be a good break in her career and I hope she will cross the 2000 ELO rating mark in the next one year," he told PTI about the Nagpur player.
Divya's mother Namrata speaking over phone from Nagpur said, "I am delighted. It is a very good feeling to have her win a second world title. She put in a lot of hard work and the result is great."

She said the family was gearing up to welcome her in a grand manner.
"Ours is a joint family and we are planning something big tomorrow when she returns. I spoke to her briefly, she was very excited," Namrata said adding Divya had improved tremendously since she came under the wings of Ramesh.
"Almost two-three years since we are training with Ramesh. She (Divya) has improved tremendously and matured as a chess player every since she began to work with him. He is a very dedicated and hard working coach. This success has been achieved because of hard work and also the great coordination between the player, coach and parents," Namrata added.

In the Under-12 open section, M Pranesh scored 7.5 points to finish 11th. S Rohith Krishna finished 16th with 7 points. Manish Anto Cristiano scored only 6 points to finish 32nd.
In the U-10 girls section, M Sahithi Varshini finished seventh with 7.5 points. B Savitha Shri scored 7 points to finish 10th. Rohilla Shivika finished 19th with six points.
In the U-10 open section, H Bharath Subramaniyam drew his game in the last round to finish fourth with 8 points. Dev Shah defeated Shahil Dey to finish sixth with 8 points. Shahil came 13th with 7 points, while Praneeth Vuppala finished 21st with 6.5 points.

In the Under-8 girls category, A N Shefali finished 11th with 6.5 points. Sneha Halder and R Saineha scored six points to finish 17th and 19th respectively.
In the Under-8 open, Priansh Das and Daaevik Wadhawan finished 10th and 11th with 7.5 and 7 points respectively.