Divya Deshmukh’s Pursuit of Happiness: Chess World Cup Champion Who Almost Quit

Divya Deshmukh was contemplating quitting chess a few months ago. Now, she is a Women's Chess World Cup champion.

How Divya Deshmukh went from nearly quitting the sport to becoming a FIDE Women's World Cup champion.

(Photo: FIDE)

Until now, no non-GM had ever won the FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup. That much we know. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Aleksandra Goryachkina had long secured their Grandmaster titles before lifting the World Cup.

Until now, no Indian woman had ever won the World Cup. That much we know. Harika Dronavalli had made it to the quarter-final in 2023, but that is about it.

What we didn’t know — couldn’t have known — was whether this tournament had ever had a participant who had seriously considered quitting the sport just months before their triumph.

On Tuesday, 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh became the first Indian woman to win the FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup, beating fellow countrymate Koneru Humpy. With this, she became India’s 88^th Grandmaster, and only the fourth woman to achieve the title, preceded by Humpy, Dronavalli and Vaishali Rameshbabu. That aside, the victory has earned her direct qualification to the 2026 Candidates Tournament, and a prize money of $50,000.

To Chess, or Not to Chess

Yet, only a few months ago, she decided to step aside from chess for a while, introspect, and seek clarity about the sport’s importance in her life going forward.

Why? Two reasons — she felt consistently tired, and wanted to prioritise happiness.

In a success-obsessed nation like India, the concoction of the said pair can be viewed as akin to blasphemy. If you’ve clawed your way into the elite circles of your sport, how dare you even entertain walking away — and for something as vague and immeasurable as happiness?

But Divya wanted to prioritise happiness.

At the Tata Steel India 2024 in November — a tournament she had previously won — Divya finished in a shocking penultimate spot in the blitz category. Disappointed, but not disgruntled, she told The Quint that the tournament had been a ‘canon event’ for her.

For our non-Gen-Z readers, a canon event is a life-altering event which shapes how a person eventually goes on become.

She said:

This has been a canon event for me. It has been terrible. But I feel canon events are really important in our lives. Because it is not realistic to win everything every time. And also, failures teach you a lot more than success does. I remember getting beaten left and right in two tournaments — one in Wijk ann Zee and the other in Tunisia — and they taught me more that the tournaments where I did well.

Divya Deshmukh

Divya had bounced back stronger than ever before after Wijk ann Zee and Tunisia. So somewhere deep down, she knew she could do it again after Kolkata. And yet, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

I am not sure if I want to pursue chess professionally, to be honest with you. At the start of 2024, I had decided that I will give my everything to chess for a year, and fortunately for me, it worked out well. But what also happened was that because I was playing so much, I got totally burned out. So now, I firstly need a break, and then I need to find some clarity about what I want to do in life.

Divya Deshmukh

Why the Dilemma, Might You Ask?

What else could one want to do in life, if she is already winning elite-level chess tournaments — one might ask. Fair enough, Divya had an answer.

The way I look at things, chess achievements come and go, but I focus on prioritising my happiness. Chess is very mentally exhausting. The training and preparation regime is laborious, and because I'm playing at the top level, there is also a lot of stress. I feel that all of it has gotten to me. So I will take a break, recover, focus on my health, try a few other sports, and then see where life takes me.

Divya Deshmukh

What she really wanted to do was to strike the chord of balance between her personal and professional life. At that point, there wasn’t any.

I have realised that it is very importance to have a balance of our professional and personal life. I crashed out because I could not find that balance, as I was playing all the time. This is what happens to the human body when you don't maintain a balance — breakdowns become a certainty. So try and find the balance first, and then do what makes you happy.

Divya Deshmukh

The Epic Chess World Cup Campaign

Despite her intention to commit more time to introspection, her calendar allotted very little room for it. After Kolkata, she was on the move again — first to the World Rapid & Blitz in the United States, followed by tournaments in the Netherlands, Prague, Nicosia, Pune, and Sharjah. The cycle was relentless.

The first opportunity of a break arrived the Sharjah Masters. Next on her agenda was the Women’s World Cup — six weeks afar, and enough time to recalibrate. Yet, she had modest expectations from the tournament, and would have been content with a GM norm. The title, by any stretch of the imagination, was not seen as a realistic possibility for the player who entered the competition as the 15th seed.

Having received a bye in the first round, Divya faced Georgia’s very own Kesaria Mgeladze in the second round, and Serbia’s Teodora Injac in the third.

Those two victories were business as usual. But what followed was anything but.

In the Round of 16, Divya stunned the second seed — China’s Zhu Jiner — in a performance that sent ripples through the bracket. And the path only grew steeper from there. She had to get past Indian stalwart Harika Dronavalli in the quarters and then World Rapid champion Tan Zhongyi in the semis.

The final frontier lay in the form of a stoic Koneru Humpy — twice the age of Divya, who has, without exaggerating, seen it all. And despite being in an advantageous position in the first game, the teenager could not convert, having to be content with a draw.

The second game saw her having a solid opening setup yet again, but on this occasion, she maintained a structural balance, choosing not to give up central control too early, and defended with resilience. This game ended in a draw as well, except this did her confidence a world of good.

The first of the tiebreaks saw her settling for safety over risks, but it was followed by a flawless execution of strategy, slow positional domination and flawless pawn conversion, as Humpy always found herself responding, as opposed to taking the initiative.

Chess Might’ve Been Accidental, but Deep Down, It Has Always Been Chess

Divya later dedicated the win to her parents — both being doctors, with her mother sacrificing her career as a gynaecologist to facilitate her daughter’s ascent to the pinnacle. Many years ago, they had initiated her to the sport, after Divya randomly happened to walk into a chess class.

On being asked about why she chose to pursue the sport, she said:

Honestly, I don't know why I stuck around with chess. I started playing without any plans, and eventually, it kind of became a habit for me. But I feel that my natural competitiveness has helped me in this regard. I am always competitive — I like to push myself, and I like to win things.

Divya Deshmukh

And as much as she’s sacrificed — and she has sacrificed plenty — she knows she would choose this path again. And again. And, all over again.

To be a professional sports person, you have to sacrifice a lot of things. You need to sacrifice your friends, your social life, and a major part of your family time as well. I have had to sacrifice everything as well, and it used to bother me a lot previously. But now, I have realised that what I have built for me over the years in chess is something that I hold very dear, and I will never trade it away for anything in the world.

Divya Deshmukh

Perhaps, what Divya already knew, but could not tell us back then, was — deep down, it has always been chess.