Seeded 10th and working alone, this World Rapid Championship win is special for Koneru Humpy

Seeded 10th and working alone, this World Rapid Championship win is special for Koneru Humpy

She was speaking from a distance of some 13,000 km, but one could feel her excitement. And Koneru Humpy is not someone who easily gets excited by success.

But it was no ordinary success she attained on Sunday in New York. She won the women’s World rapid chess championship after starting out as the 10th seed at the age of 37.

“Some of my opponents were half my age here in New York,” Humpy told Sportstar over the phone shortly after winning her second World Rapid title (the first was in 2019). “So this title means quite a lot to me. I was seeded 10th and wasn’t considered among the favourites.”

Humpy, however, boarded the flight to New York with her eyes set firmly on the title. “From my childhood, whenever I play in a tournament, my target has always been the first prize, and the second and third places don’t matter to me much,” said the 37-year-old from Vijayawada. “But here, I was off to a bad start, losing in the first round.”

What hurt her most about the defeat to Amina Kairbekova of Kazakhstan was that she lost on time. “I was very disappointed that day and could not stop thinking about it till I went to bed,” said Humpy. “That was because I had worked really hard on playing fast ahead of this tournament.”

She had done it by playing a lot of games online. “That was how I trained for this championship, as I was working alone,” she added.

“After the opening day, my aim was to win three of my four games on the second day and would have taken a draw in the other, but I won all four.”

So she went into the final day as a joint leader, and that was the case ahead of the last round. She was one of the seven leaders, but she moved ahead of the pack after defeating Indonesia’s Irene Sukandar.

“The game was heading towards a draw, but she blundered,” said Humpy. “So I was thus able to win the tournament as the clear first.”

Last year, she lost out on the title in the tie-breaker to Anastasia Bodnaruk of Russia. “I had been playing really well in that tournament,” she said. “I was disappointed that I lost in the tie-breaks.”

Now, Humpy is looking forward to doing well in the World Blitz Championship, which opens on Monday.