Anna Muzychuk Catches Vaishali In Austria Grand Prix Lead
GM Anna Muzychuk is on course to qualify for the next Women's Candidates Tournament after winning a second game in a row to join GM Vaishali Rameshbabu in the 2025 Grosslobming FIDE Women's Grand Prix lead on 2.5/3. GM Tan Zhongyi had started the day as co-leader, but lost to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, while GM Zhu Jiner is back in the hunt, recovering from two losses with a dramatic win over IM Nurgyul Salimova.
Round four starts on Friday, May 9, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.
We got the most decisive day of action yet, with only one draw in round three.
Grosslobming FIDE Women's Grand Prix Round 3 Results
The key change in the standings was that Anna Muzychuk replaced Tan as Vaishali's co-leader.
Grosslobming FIDE Women's Grand Prix Standings After Round 3
Once again there were no quiet games in Grosslobming, with even the one draw seeing GM Nana Dzagnidze play the Sicilian and grab a central pawn against Vaishali. White had compensation, but no more, and in the end neither player had gone seriously astray before we got a 40-move draw by repetition.
That draw proved enough for Vaishali to remain in the lead, since Tan not only failed to win the clash of former world champions, but slumped to defeat.
Kosteniuk 1-0 Tan
Kosteniuk was puzzled at how rapidly everything fell apart for Black, even if the game ultimately dragged on to move 84: "It’s always nice to win, because the tournament is very strong and it’s not obvious to win even one game, so I’m happy that I managed, because right after the opening I thought that it should be an easy draw, a very fast draw!"
A loss and a draw for the pre-round leaders was a chance for Anna Muzychuk, and she seized it with both hands.
Badelka 0-1 Anna Muzychuk
This was a game where Badelka's ambitious opening—with an early b3, Bb2 and e5—soon backfired, but it could have been different if on move 12 Badelka had grabbed Black's pawn on e5, instead of going for a discovered attack on Black's queen. Anna was able to consolidate, and even if her conversion wasn't perfect, it was always hard for White to play.
Anna's win boosts her chance of qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament by finishing in the top-two places of the Grand Prix series, while it's also a worrying sign for GM Aleksandra Goryachkina. The current Grand Prix leader has played her three events and can only fail to pick up a Candidates spot if Muzychuk takes sole first place here at Grosslobming.
In that scenario, Zhu would only need to take third place to join Anna in the Candidates at Goryachkina's expense—and also to win the Grand Prix outright! Zhu's first two games ending in defeat had made finishing third look problematic, but she undid half of the damage in round three with a spectacular win.
Zhu 1-0 Salimova
This game was phenomenally complicated, with sacrifices and pieces left en prise for long sequences of play. Salimova had chances to take over herself, but in the end she grabbed a poisoned piece and was put to the sword by some brutally calculated play from Zhu.
The first game of the day to finish, meanwhile, was one that wasn't critical to the fight for Candidates spots, but did feature a remarkably dominant win for IM Lela Javakhishvili over former Women's World Champion Mariya Muzychuk.
Mariya Muzychuk 0-1 Javakhishvili
Javakhishvili noted that her direct approach to the Italian with 6...d5 was one she hadn't tried before and perhaps caught her opponent by surprise. The Georgian player explained how she navigated the opening: "We remember some stuff, the position we should get in the end, but we don’t know how to get to the position concretely!"
It would all work out for Black, however, since after 19.g3? Javakhishvili assessed her position as simply winning. There was no way back for Mariya, who also found herself in deep time trouble later in the game.
Javakhishvili's next test will be against fellow round-three winner Zhu.
Round 4 Pairings
The other key matchups are the heavyweight, all-GM struggles Dzagnidze–Tan and Anna Muzychuk–Kosteniuk. Will someone emerge as a sole leader for the first time in the event?
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2025 Grosslobming FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Felix Blohberger and WIM Veronika Exler.
The 2025 Grosslobming FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the sixth and final leg of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs May 6-15 in Grosslobming, Austria. Players have 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20+ players competes in three events; the top two qualify for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
- Round 2: Vaishali, Tan Still Perfect As Anna Muzychuk Takes Down Zhu
- Round 1: Tan Zhongyi Stuns Zhu Jiner To Boost Candidates Chances
- Humpy Wins Pune Women's Grand Prix, Zhu Closes On Candidates
- Anna Muzychuk Wins Cyprus Grand Prix On Tiebreaks
- Goryachkina Wins In Monaco, Takes FIDE Women's Grand Prix Lead
- Goryachkina Wins Shymkent FIDE Women's Grand Prix
- Kashlinskaya Wins Tbilisi Grand Prix, Earns 2nd GM Norm
- FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024-2025: All The Info
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
