Vaishali R becomes the latest Woman Grandmaster from India

17-year-old Vaishali is India's highest-ranked woman chess player under the age of 18 and 17th overall in her age category. Her current rating is 2,324 and she was always expected to progress fast after the promising talent had become a Woman International Master (WIM) in 2016. 

Now Vaishali has become the latest Woman Grandmaster from India when she secured her third and final WGM norm at the Riga Technical University Open, which was held in Latvia. The sister of the world's second-youngest Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa, bagged five points from her nine rounds. She drew her last match with Russian International Master Ilya Duzhakov, earning 30 rating points for her performances in the tournament. She ranked 71st in the final tournament tally.

In 2017, Vaishali R had won the Asia Blitz Chess Championships in Chengdu, China, where she clinched the gold medal with eight points from nine games, ahead of Iran’s Sarasdat Khademalsharieh and compatriot Padmini Rout. At 14, Vaishali had shocked the Indian chess community when she won the 42nd National Women Challengers Chess Championships held in Bhayandar, Mumbai, with nine points from 11 games.

Her under-12 world title in Maribor in 2012 and the under-14 title at Porto Carras, Greece, in 2015 puts her in an exclusive list of Indians to have won more than one age-group world chess title. The only other Indians to do this are Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, M Mahalakshmi, Murali Karthikeyan, Divya Deshmukh and Vaishali’s brother R Praggnanandha.

R Praggnanandhaa became the second youngest Grandmaster of all time in June 2018. Praggnanandhaa and Vaishali both train together at the Chess Gurukul Academy in Chennai under Grandmaster RB Ramesh.