Divya Deshmukh, with edgy, exuberant attacking style, raises hope that India has next big thing in women’s chess

Divya’s is hardly a generation that sets a lot of store on sporting idols when chasing greatness herself. Asked two years back which chess player she looked up to, she nonchalantly said she was inspired by many like Vishy Anand, but she’s never had a “perfect role model” whose career she wanted to mimic. “No one that makes me feel this is where I want to be,” she had said. So it’s not so much about Djoker posters on walls and idly charging into GOAT debates in tennis’ fan wars. She was intrigued by the sport enough to pick a racquet and start playing herself. “I’ve just begun playing tennis recently,” she would say.

The last one year has been a roller coaster, not unlike the tournament in Pune where she was stringing together wins against Nurgyul Salimova, R Vaishali, Melia Salome and Batkhuyag Munguntuul on good days, and being yanked back to the ground on others, like by the Chinese eventual second-placed Zhu Jiner.

Calculated risks and catching opponents off guard has underpinned Divya’s wins last season. Just to get a sense of what sort of 2024 she had, look at her rating gains of 70 rating points in the 12 months of 2024 — by contrast, Aravindh Chitambaram rose 64 points, Arjun grew by 63, and World Champion Gukesh added 52 to his tally. Even as Koneru Humpy persists with her attempts at the world champion’s crown, there’s more than just her fans who reckon she has the right attitude to one day fight for the elusive women’s world title.

The tournament organisation head GM Abhijit Kunte explained that leap of belief. “She’s easily our best bet for a world champion. She’s already been a World junior champion, and won an Olympiad gold with India. She’s ticking all the boxes and competing amongst the world elite. The way she’s playing, it’s a trajectory like Viswanathan Anand’s.

Within two years of winning the junior world crown, Anand was fighting the elite,” he says.

Ask Divya about these lofty expectations, and she slays the thought with enough confidence and detachment. “People will always have expectations. I care about mine,” she says. She hadn’t been following the daily standings deliberately, she says, “Pune tournament was a roller-coaster. I liked some of my attacking wins, especially against Munguntuul. But losses like the one to Zhu Jiner will haunt.”

She’s at an ELO rating of 2460 this month, having crossed 2500 briefly last November. But Divya remains a fiery IM, not unafraid to take down established GMs, even as she chases her norms in a season that has offered her a glimpse of how cutthroat elite chess can get. “I didn’t perform to the best of my ability and was up against a lot of strong players last year. Some very rocky matches,” Divya would say, though she’s happy and comfortable with her edgy, exuberant attacking style.

Even as the Chinese continue to dominate, she will most likely form the next generation of buccaneer piece-movers, with Russian Polina Shuvalova, who play risky, fighting chess and are tactically and positionally versatile. “Attacking chess is just something inbuilt. Since my age-category days, I always go for gold. It’s like permanent ‘strike’ mode,” she says. “I play chess because I enjoy it. And that has the highest highs and lowest lows both,” she adds.

Pune had been a happy hunting ground for Divya, for it is in this western Maharashtra city that the eastern Maharashtra ace (she’s from Warna, near Nagpur) won her first nationals. Coach Rahul Joshi had helped the family navigate everything from which tournaments to play in, and what would be the best pathways, as well as juggling playing finances.

For her mother, Dr Namrata Deshmukh, chess wasn’t something her younger daughter just lightly waded into. A gynaec, Dr Namrata, gave up on her medical practice largely to focus on Divya’s dreams on the chequered squares, even as the elder daughter played a spot of badminton. Divya’s father played chess, but so did Dr Durgaprasad Sharma, Namrata’s grandfather, whose Saturday routines of a chess game with social justice fighter Vinoba Bhave, formed the stuff of stories the whole family listened to.

“We are from a small town, Warna. And frankly we didn’t even know chess had formal competitions initially,” the mother says. “In the beginning as doctors it was unimaginable as parents that our daughter was not going to school, not studying just to play chess. She was always dedicated, but it’s a huge risk. And after a point, she didn’t want to come out of it (chess world),” she adds.

Was it a sacrifice, giving up on a practice? “Cant call it that, as if it’s a burden. She was happy and interested in chess, so we had to support it. I saw it as my duty since she was performing well. But yes, I feel bad about ignoring the older one.”

Chess has made Divya quieter and wiser beyond her years, though she still loves to sing and dance at home with exuberance, Dr Namrata says. “The more she travels, the more she likes home food too. Anything chicken,” she says.

Tennis — via Djokovic’s sliding on clay — is Divya’s new habit-in-the-making. R&B music of Weeknd, the singer known for his introspective lyrics, is an old fix.

The world has its own thoughts on timelines that might see Divya fight one day for the world title. “I have my own,” she says, knowing the steep ascent on this mountain is a jagged, terribly rocky face, teeming with some massive names. She’s just trying to do a Djoker in chess — stomp through in the Federer-Nadal world.