Vaishali wins the Candidates, to challenge Ju Wenjun for World title

R. Vaishali won the Women’s Candidates chess tournament in Cyprus on Wednesday and thus qualified for the World championship match to be played later this year. The Grandmaster from Chennai scored a crushing victory over Russia’s Kateryna Lagno in the final round to emerge as the clear winner.

Vaishali finished with 8.5 points, half-a-point more than Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, who was held to a draw by Divya Deshmukh. That draw ensured that Vaishali would go ahead of Assaubayeva in the points table.