India’s Divya Deshmukh was crowned the women’s rapid champion at the Tata Steel Chess in Kolkata , on Saturday.
The 17-year-old defeated the second seed and India No 1 Koneru Humpy with the black pieces to win the title with a score of 7/9 ahead of the reigning world champion Ju Wenjun.
Deshmukh, who was invited to the tournament only after a last minute withdrawal from R Vaishali, had a dream run at the National Library. She was, in fact, the lowest rated player in the field.
The Nagpur based International Master, however, dominated the event right from the start. She was in a joint lead alongside fellow Indian IM Vantika Agarwal at the end of the first three rounds on Thursday.
She then registered three consecutive victories on Friday to move into the sole lead with five wins and a draw in six rounds and be 1.5 points clear of the second placed top seed Wenjun from China.
Deshmukh started the final day of the competition with a draw against the defending champion Anna Ushenina.
With a title victory in the sight, the youngster faltered in the eighth and penultimate round as she went down to IM Polina Shuvalova with the white pieces. The loss also meant that Wenjun caught up with the Indian at 6 points with two sucessive victories.
Deshmukh, however, wrapped up her fairytale run with a win on demand against veteran Humpy while the Chinese GM was held to a draw by Ushenina to further the Indian’s cause.