Chess: Historic! 10-year-old Indian-origin British chess prodigy beats ex-world champ

Ten-year-old British chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan achieved a singular triumph by defeating erstwhile World Champion Grandmaster Mariya Muzychuk astatine the European Club Cup successful Rhodes, Greece connected Sunday, becoming 1 of the youngest chess players to instrumentality down a erstwhile World Champion.Born successful London successful 2015 to parents from Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, the young subordinate from northbound London secured this historical triumph portion representing the 12th-seeded squad She Plays to Win Lionesses.

Despite her team's 3-1 nonaccomplishment to Turkish Airlines successful Round 1, Sivanandan's triumph stood out.The triumph was peculiarly important arsenic Muzychuk, the satellite fig 13 with a FIDE standing of 2485, ranked 280 points supra Sivanandan's 2205."She seems to beryllium beating a GM each week now!" said English Grandmaster Danny Gormally."It's not each time a 10-year-old defeats a GM (and erstwhile World Champion) successful specified style," remarked England's number-one Grandmaster David Howell.Grandmaster Susan Polgar, Women's World Champion from 1996 to 1999, described Sivanandan's crippled arsenic "impressive".Earlier this year, Sivanandan became the youngest pistillate chess subordinate to decision a grandmaster erstwhile she bushed 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells astatine the 2025 British Chess Championships successful Liverpool.

Her triumph astatine 10 years, 5 months and 3 days surpassed the 2019 grounds held by American Carissa Yip. During the aforesaid event, she besides became the youngest subordinate to unafraid a WGM norm.The Harrow schoolgirl, who started playing chess during lockdown, made past successful 2024 arsenic the youngest idiosyncratic to correspond England internationally successful immoderate athletics astatine the Chess Olympiad successful Hungary."English chess has been successful the doldrums for truthful galore years. We've had bully players coming through, don't get maine wrong, but we haven't had large players coming done for galore years," said Gormally."And present we've abruptly got a procreation with GM Shreyas Royal and Bodhana, and FM Supratit Banerjee and FM Ethan Pang and others who are really exciting. We don't cognize however beardown they're going to be."Sivanandan is portion of a caller procreation of English chess endowment making their people successful planetary competitions.