'A Historic Win': Sachin Tendulkar Praises Divya Deshmukh Following World Cup Triumph

Last Updated:July 29, 2025, 11:04 IST

Sachin Tendulkar has congratulated Divya Deshmukh for winning the Women's World Cup, becoming India's first champion at the tournament.

Divya Deshmukh won the FIDE Women's World Cup (Picture credit: Andrei Anosov/FIDE)

Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday extended his congratulations to teenage chess player Divya Deshmukh, who on Monday beat compatriot Koneru Humpy to win the Women’s World Cup at Batumi in Georgia, thus becoming the first Indian to win the tournament in its three editions.

The win for Divya came after the two classical matches played on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27 ended in draws.

After the drawn matches, it was the first set of tiebreakers that proved decisive as Humpy lost the battle of nerves.

“An all-Indian final. A historic win. Congrats Divya Deshmukh, India’s first Women’s World Cup Champion and newest Grandmaster. Full credit to Koneru Humpy for a thrilling contest yesterday," Tendulkar tweeted on Tuesday morning. 

Except for the World Cup and the Women’s World Championship, Humpy has won everything under the sun, but as fate would have it, the former title eluded her again. 

Deshmukh showed resolve on Monday and the bonus for the determination was the Grandmaster title, reserved for the champion of this tournament.

Deshmukh is now the fourth Indian woman player to achieve the Grandmaster feat after Humpy, Dronavalli Harika and R Vaishali.

The runner-up at the World Cup, Humpy, 38, became a GM in 2002 and Divya was born in 2005.

For the record, Deshmukh became the 88th GM of India and if she continues to remain resolute in her endeavour, she can achieve great success.

Deshmukh was a bundle of energy as she kept piling pressure on Humpy in the opening tiebreaker, tiring out the latter and then going for the kill in the return tiebreaker.

Out of a Petroff defence, Deshmukh got an isolated Queen pawn middle game and sacrificed a pawn to give Humpy better prospects in the opening tiebreaker, but the latter couldn’t convert eventually.

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News sports 'A Historic Win': Sachin Tendulkar Praises Divya Deshmukh Following World Cup Triumph