Queen of Cyprus: Vaishali Rameshbabu Conquers the World

At 24, the Indian grandmaster clinches the Women's Candidates in a dramatic final round — and earns her shot at the world championship crown.

Chess has long been a sport of dynasties and dynasties-in-waiting. On April 15, 2026, inside the elegant Cap St Georges Hotel & Resort in Paphos, Cyprus, a new name wrote itself into that lineage. Vaishali Rameshbabu, a 24-year-old grandmaster from Chennai, defeated

Kateryna Lagno in the tournament's final round to win the FIDE Women's Candidates — earning the right to challenge reigning world champion Ju Wenjun for the highest title in women's chess.

It was the culmination of fifteen years of sacrifice, study, and an unshakeable belief in the game. Emerging from the playing hall to the embraces of her mother and her brother — GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, himself a Candidates participant — Vaishali could only describe it as she felt it.

"It's a dream-come-true moment for all of my family. It's been a long journey to become World Champion and to be playing there, and I'm very happy that I won the Candidates."— Vaishali Rameshbabu, post-match press conference

The final-round gauntlet

Heading into Round 14, Vaishali was deadlocked at 7.5/13 with Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan. The tension was exquisite: a win for either player, combined with a stumble by the other, would decide everything. Vaishali's opponent, Kateryna Lagno, needed a win herself to have any realistic claim on the title, and she came out swinging — choosing the sharp Sicilian Dragon, one of chess's most combative openings, to provoke a firefight.

It backfired comprehensively. Thanks to deep home preparation, Vaishali secured an extra pawn in the opening and converted with remarkable accuracy, finishing the game at an

engine-evaluated 96% — with only a single minor inaccuracy in 40 moves. Lagno cracked near the time control, surrendering a rook, and Vaishali calmly closed out the greatest victory of her career while, across the hall, Assaubayeva could manage only a draw against India's own Divya Deshmukh.

A family unlike any other

The Rameshbabu siblings are a phenomenon. Vaishali and Praggnanandhaa are the first brother-sister pair in history both to hold the grandmaster title, a distinction that speaks to the extraordinary chess household their parents — bank manager Rameshbabu and homemaker Nagalakshmi — created in Chennai. That Praggnanandhaa was competing in the open Candidates section at the same tournament made the moment even more surreal: two siblings, two Candidates, same week, same building.

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand was among the first to celebrate her achievement, calling her triumph a proud moment for Indian chess and noting her "excellent preparation and resilience." Vaishali, for her part, was quick to credit her team — and to acknowledge the moments of doubt she overcame.

"At my best I can fight with all these players equally — and thanks to my team, they believed in me so much even when I doubted self."— Vaishali, speaking after her win

The road to the top — and what comes next

Vaishali's path to Cyprus was built on a body of work that has steadily grown since she won the Girls' World Youth Championship at under-12 in 2012. She is a two-time FIDE Women's Grand Swiss champion (2023 and 2025), the latter win earning her the

Candidates berth she needed. At the 2026 event, she entered as the lowest-rated player in the field — and left as its champion.

Now she faces her greatest test yet: a match against Ju Wenjun, the formidable Chinese grandmaster who has held the Women's World Championship since 2018. It is a matchup that will pit Vaishali's combinative sharpness and competitive resilience against one of the most experienced champions the women's game has ever produced. Indian chess, already celebrating Gukesh's rise on the open side, will have two champions to cheer — and Vaishali will fight with everything she has to bring the title home.