Women's World Cup: Yip Last American Standing, Champion's Curse Continues

There’s no such thing as an easy pairing in this tournament. The 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup is down from 107 players to the final 32 in Batumi, Georgia, with three qualifying spots for the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidate Tournament. 26 of the top 32 seeds are still in the running, with IM Carissa Yip (seeded 22nd) the lone American still standing.

Top-seeded GM Lei Tingjie illustrates the pressure cooker environment of a knockout tournament (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

In case you missed it, our first round report covered the details of the knock-out format. The first classical game of round three begins Saturday, July 12, at 6:20 a.m. CDT, with the second classical game on Sunday and tie-breaker matches held on Monday. Then, after the event’s first rest day on Tuesday, the round of 16 will begin Wednesday. The tournament runs until July 27 (or July 28 if tie-breakers are needed for the first- or third-place match), making for a total of seven rounds.

Yip Versus The World

In an unfortunate early pairing for American fans, IM Carissa Yip defeated GM Irina Krush 2–0 in their head-to-head match. This was one of just three matches (out of 32) between two players from the same country, with the others being GM Anna Muzychuk’s 2½–1½ victory over fellow Ukrainian IM Inna Gaponenko and GM Harika Dronavalli’s 1½–½ win against WGM P.V. Nandhidhaa in an all-Indian affair.

Carissa Yip was all smiles after her narrow escape against Irina Krush on Wednesday (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

Despite the lopsided final score, the Yip – Krush match could have very easily gone in another direction. As WGM Sabina Foisor details in her annotations of their tense encounter on Wednesday, Krush had all the winning chances after an opening surprise failed to throw Krush out of her comfort zone:

After Krush’s clock-assisted collapse, she had the doubly unfortunate responsibility of having to win on demand as Black in order to extend the match. Needing to avoid Yip’s perpetual check, she had to play on and hope for a future error from Yip:

Yip’s FIDE rating is up to a new peak of 2462, putting her just 38 points away from the rating requirement from the GM title only a few weeks after earning her second GM norm. It's been a very successful year for Yip so far, and you can learn more about her as well as her coach, GM Awonder Liang, in this very endearing promotional video from FIDE:

But next up is her toughest opponent yet: GM Vaishali Rameshbabu of India. The 24-year-old not only qualified for the last FIDE Women’s World Championship Candidates tournament, but, after a slow start, ultimately finished tied for second with a 7½/14 score against elite competition.

Vaishali Rameshbabu (L) will face Carissa Yip in classical for the first time on Saturday (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

Like Yip, Vaishali was also board two on her national team for the last FIDE Olympiad, helping India win the gold. But even though Yip played all 11 rounds and Vaishali played 10, it turns out the only round she sat out was the 2–2 tie between USA and India in round 9. In that round, Yip’s draw against IM Divya Deshmukh was perhaps her least exciting game of the tournament, and I remember wishing we got to witness an all out war between Yip and the equally tactically uncompromising Vaishali. Well, here we are!

The 15-year-old phenom IM Alice Lee will be back! (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

The talented 15-year-old American IM Alice Lee met her match against the talented 16-year-old Russian WGM Anna Shukhman, with the latter advancing after another 2–0 victory where the final score does not accurately represent how close the games were, particularly with Lee missing a chance at a significant advantage in the first game:

At least Lee had the white pieces for her “must-win” game on Thursday, and things seemed promising enough when she had an opportunity to reach a relatively favorable position in the Catalan. But one inaccuracy from Lee was enough for Shukhman to shut the door:

WGM Thalia Cervantes had the toughest second-round pairing of the four Americans, squaring off against ninth-seeded GM Mariya Muzychuk. The Ukrainian was the Women’s World Champion as the result of her 2015 victory in this knock-out tournament, and she is still a regular name atop the standings of top women’s tournaments.

A tough tie-breaker for Thalia Cervantes saw Mariya Muzychuk come back from a deficit in the first tie-breaker in a disappointing exit for the American (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

Cervantes looked like she was on track to hold a draw with the black pieces during Wednesday’s game, putting her in excellent position to fight for an upset. But then …

After escaping with a draw and holding serve as White on Thursday with relative ease, Cervantes won the first game in the first tie-breaker to take her first lead of the match. But after Muzychuk equalized, she swept the second tie-breaker to win the match 4–2 and eliminate Cervantes.

Keep an eye out for Foisor’s videos on our YouTube channel to see more from this match. As a teaser, what resource did Muzychuk miss as Black in the position below?

Position after 23. f3 in Cervantes – Muzychuk (3), Black to play

You’ll have to stay tuned for the solution, but definitely try your hand at it now, as it’s a very satisfying puzzle.

The Champion’s Curse Continues

Despite many thrilling tie-breakers and three-result games, the top seeds have advanced with relative consistency so far in Batumi, with 26 of the top 32 seeds still in contention.

Of the six eliminated “top 32” players, two lost what were essentially “coin flip” matches against players of equal strength. GM Antoaneta Stefanova (33rd seed) won a tense match against GM Elina Danielian (32) 3½–2½ in what could hardly be called an upset victory for the former Women’s World Champion. Similarly, IM Irina Bulmaga (35) defeated IM Deimante Daulyte-Cornette in a 1½–½ match of equals.

The official website’s tournament tree helpfully divides the bracket into eight sections, with the eight section champions constituting the field of quarterfinalists. Of these sections, Sections 1 and 8 were the most dramatic. Primarily from these two groups, we say goodbye to two former Women’s World Cup winners and two strong GMs who regularly perform well at top events such as the Cairns Cup.

Elnaz Kaliakhmet (L) and Umida Omonova enter their head-to-head match as the only players to win consecutive rounds as underdogs (Photos courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

In Section 1, overall top seed GM Lei Tingjie is joined by Bulgaria's GM Antoaneta Stefanova (33), Uzbek WIM Umida Omonova (80), and Kazakh WFM Elnaz Kaliakhmet (81). Omonova eliminated Polish IM Alina Kashlinskaya (17) 3–1, while Kaliakhmet did not even need tie-breaks to knock out Georgian GM Nino Batsiashvili (16) 1½–½. Funnily enough, this pits the two lowest-seeded players remaining in the tournament against each other in round three!

Defending Women's World Cup champion Aleksandra Goryachkina suffered the same fate of many preceding champions before her (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

Of the eight “top section seeds,” only GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (6) failed to advance. Kazakh IM Meruet Kamalidenova (59) came out strong, kicking off the match with an upset of the defending Women’s World Cup champion:

But Goryachkina fired back on Thursday, applying pressure deep into a drawish rook endgame until the 20-year-old made one fatal error.

While the general opinion of the commentators was that Goryachkina had survived her scare and was now firmly in control headed into the rapid match, Kamalidenova again came out swinging in their first game Friday. Goryachkina’s opportunities to stay afloat were few and far between:

This time, Kamalidenova did not falter in her return game, holding a draw to eliminate one of the few women to have ever been over 2600 FIDE. Kamalidenova now faces Shukhman in the next round.

An overjoyed Meruert Kamalidenova shares her thoughts on her upset tie-breaker victory over Goryachkina (Photo courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

Goryachkina’s early exit is hardly unprecedented for a defending champion. As pointed out in a post made by an anonymous X/Twitter user (whose account is private, otherwise I would link and credit), the defending Women’s World Cup Champion has not made it past the round of 32 since 2010 (when GM Alexandra Kosteniuk made it to the round of 16).

To be fair, GM Hou Yifan declined to defend her 2015 title in the 2017 edition, and GM Ju Wenjun did not defend her 2018 title in the 2021 edition. Still, that makes for the winners of each of the 2010, 2012, 2017, and 2021 Women’s World Cup all losing in the round of 32. Now, we can add the 2023 champion to the list after her elimination in the round of 64. This should certainly explain why the knockout format is so exciting for the fans and stressful for the players!

One of those former champions — 2012 Women’s World Champion GM Anna Ushenina of Ukraine — was also the victim of an upset during Friday’s tie-breakers. The 39-year-old veteran entered as the 26th seed, but 23-year-old Indian IM Vantika Agrawal (39th seed) won their marathon match 4½–3½ after three sets of tie-breakers. Vantika advances to face GM Kateryna Lagno in the Section 6 semifinal.

Vantika Agrawal's upset over former Women's World Champion Anna Ushenina in the third tie-breaker highlighted Friday's playoff drama (Photos courtesy of Anna Shtourman/FIDE)

All pairings can be found on FIDE’s official event website, and all games can be replayed on Chess.com and lichess.org. Round 3 begins Wednesday, July 12, at 6:20 a.m. CDT.