57th Biel Festival: Grandmaster R Vaishali enters world's top 10 female chess players
India's female chess prodigy, Grandmaster R Vaishali has entered into the top 10 female chess players, moving up five places in the live classical chess ratings. Her highest ranking came after Vaishali drew against Marc Andria Maurizzi of France in the fourth round of the 57th Biel Chess Festival. She did this with the black pieces, showing the world her strategic capabilities.
R Vaishali is now the second Indian female player to be in the current top 10 world rankings, joining the great Koneru Humpy who is currently seventh. This draw against France's Maurizzi on International Chess Day saw Vaishali rise to the ninth place in the women's live rating, netting her 21.6 rating points to reach 2509.6. Humpy, who has reportedly decided to miss Chess Olympiad 2024 for other tournaments, is rated 2530.
In the ongoing Biel Chess Festival, Vaishali is now aiming for further improvement in rating points. The 23-year-old is currently ranked second on the Biel Challenger leaderboard with 18.5 points. She is just a point behind the leader UAE's Saleh Salem, who has 19.5 points. Potentially, the next round could see her contradicting Salem's ranking, or mat even surpass Saleh in the rankings tables.
9th-ranked R Vaishali is set to compete at the Women's Candidates Tournament in Canada
The Chennai-born's recent achievements include becoming champion at the FIDE Women's Grand Swiss 2023 in the Isle of Man with 8.5/11. This helped her qualify to partake in the Women's Candidates Tournament all set to take place in Toronto, Canada this year.
Notably, she became a Woman Grandmaster (WGM) in August 2018 at the Riga Technical University Open in Latvia and got the International Master (IM) title in 2021. Her other notable records include being a member of India's gold medal-winning team at the Online Olympiad 2020 and participating in the FIDE Women's Speed Chess Championship in 2022.
It is pertinent to mention that R Vaishali will be the only Indian player to participate in the first leg of the Women's Grand Prix in Georgia this year, continuing to cement her place as a serious contender in the chess world.