R Vaishali has won the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates tournament, and will take on China's Ju Wenjun for the world title later this year.
The 24-year-old eventually won the tournament by half a point, by scoring a critical win in the final round, with a superb, clinical performance with white pieces against Kateryna Lagno. So, from starting the tournament as the lowest rated player in the field to now going through to the World Championship match, this is akin to D Gukesh's run to the Candidates title in 2024, when he was one of the lowest-rated players in the field too. In 2024, Vaishali had scored 7.5 points in the Candidates tournament to finish in joint-second place. This time, she finished with one point more, and the top step in the standings is hers.
"Playing for a world championship title is very prestigious - very happy that she's come so far," her childhood coach RB Ramesh said on Chessbase India's live stream, during the closing stages of Vaishali's game against Lagno.
The 24-year-old Vaishali, for whom this was the second appearance at the Candidates, was a picture of calm and poise in the final round. It helped her that the opening went exactly to her plan. Her preparation was exactly what transpired on the board, and that meant she came out of the opening with a big advantage.
With a pawn advantage, Vaishali kept pushing through that middle game, but the most significant period of the game came right before the second time control, as on moves 38, 39, and 40, Vaishali played a series of decisive moves, where any misstep would've meant her ceding the advantage for the situation to become parity.
"She kept the nerves well at the crucial moment. Really great result," Ramesh said.
While Vaishali had to do the job against Lagno, which she did expertly, she also needed a favour from a countrywoman, which she got in the nick of time. Divya Deshmukh held Bibisara Assaubayeva to a draw in the final game. Assaubayeva came into the final round level on points with Vaishali, and her draw meant Vaishali's win was decisive in the tournament.
What makes the win sensational is that there was a serious chance that Vaishali didn't even make it to the Candidates. Back in August, she had just gone through the Chennai Grand Masters event with just 1.5 points in the whole tournament. The aftermath was so poor for her mental state that she'd decided for herself that she wouldn't play in the Grand Swiss tournament, which she eventually won to qualify for the Candidates. If it wasn't for her brother R Praggnanandhaa and GM Karthikeyan Murali giving her a pep-talk and forcing her to play in the Grand Swiss, Vaishali wouldn't have gone to Uzbekistan for that tournament, she wouldn't have won that tournament, she wouldn't have qualified for the Candidates, and she wouldn't have won the Candidates.
But now, here it is, on her date with destiny, Vaishali played the most sensational chess of her life. On the biggest day of her career, Vaishali showed no nerves, she played almost the perfect game. She never allowed Lagno a sniff. What made it even better was that she came into this game on the back of scoring just half a point in the last two rounds. That might have been zero in two rounds as well, if Tan Zhongyi had been a little more accurate in the penultimate round, which eventually ended in a draw.
In the end, it was those two games against Tan which have helped Vaishali tip the scales in this tournament. She was completely losing in the first game against Tan, but a blunder from the Chinese helped Vaishali win that game, and in the second game, the Chinese couldn't convert a slight advantage into a decisive one.
Now, with a few months to go, the preparation for the biggest tournament of Vaishali's life begins. The adversary is as formidable as she has ever faced. Few women's players in history have been able to match Wenjun at her best. However, if any player in the recent history of women's chess has reveled in being the underdog, that is Vaishali Rameshbabu.
"First, it has to sink in. After the international excitement goes down, we'll have to start making plans for the World Championship," said Ramesh.
For too long, her younger brother cast a long shadow on her. Now, she's burst out of that shadow and carved a niche for herself. Women's World Championship, Vaishali is coming.