Cairns Cup: Tan comes from behind to beat Deshmukh, extends lead
Can anyone stop Tan Zhongyi? In the seventh round of the Cairns Cup, the Chinese star staged a comeback from a dire position against Divya Deshmukh; with two rounds remaining, she has now established a full-point lead and is in an excellent position. Meanwhile, Alice Lee missed a chance for a crucial victory against Anna Muzychuk, failing to convert a rook endgame where she held an extra pawn. The other winner of the round was Bibisara Assaubayeva, who defeated Stavroula Tsolakidou to draw level with Lee.
Tan a full point ahead
Initially, it looked like the seventh round might produce a flurry of draws. It seemed the field might bunch up, until Tan Zhongyi finally extended her lead to a full point.
Round 7 results
| Name | Rtg. | Nt. | Pts. | Pts. | Name | Rtg | Nt. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GM | Divya Deshmukh | 2490 |  | 3½ | 0-1 | 4½ | GM | Tan,Z | 2520 |  |
| GM | Assaubayeva,B | 2538 |  | 3½ | 1-0 | 3½ | WGM | Tsolakidou,S | 2433 |  |
| WGM | Lee,A | 2430 |  | 4 | ½-½ | 3 | GM | Muzychuk,A | 2529 |  |
| GM | Vaishali,R | 2489 | | 2 | ½-½ | 3 | WGM | Yip,C | 2459 | |
| GM | Kosteniuk,A | 2504 |  | 1 | ½-½ | 2 | GM | Koneru,H | 2524 | |
Four wins and three draws—that is Tan Zhongyi’s impressive record at this year’s Cairns Cup. She hasn’t won every game convincingly, but she has remained consistently alert whenever an opportunity arose.
Playing with the black pieces against Divya Deshmukh, the 35-year-old Tan—who became Women’s World Champion in 2017—found herself in a clearly inferior position amidst a wild game. Deshmukh signaled her fighting intent from the start with an aggressive Vienna Game. The plan worked initially, giving her a clear initiative. However, she later lost control of the position, despite holding an advantage of an exchange and two pawns.
In a battle unfolding on opposite flanks of the board, Tan’s highly advanced kingside pawns ultimately secured the win, aided by the unusually safe shelter she had created for her king on h5.
A doubly frustrating draw for Alice Lee
Following Alice Lee’s strong start to the tournament, the calculations had already begun: before the seventh round, she needed another 2 points to secure her first GM norm. It was, therefore, all the more disappointing that she failed to convert a position against Anna Muzychuk in which she had held a clear advantage for a long time. The draw allowed Tan to restore her one-point lead.
In a game where the 16-year-old American gained control following the Ukrainian’s erroneous 29th move and made steady progress in a challenging rook endgame—playing with five pawns against four—she failed to capitalize on Muzychuk’s decisive blunder on the 88th move. Her response, 89.Re7, was still sound, but she squandered nearly her entire advantage on the 90th move, and the game ended in a draw 19 moves later. Lee now needs 1½ points from the final two rounds to secure her GM norm.
Tsolakidou suffers her first defeat
Stavroula Tsolakidou still had a chance to achieve a GM norm; however, the Greek IM lost her game against Bibisara Assaubayeva. The Kazakh player gave her opponent a few chances; although she let a significant portion of her advantage slip away at times, she ultimately won after 50 moves.
Carissa Yip’s hopes for a GM norm also vanished—as did Tsolakidou’s—after she drew against Vaishali Rameshbabu, leaving her tied for fourth to seventh place. In any case, the reigning champion would have needed to finish the Cairns Cup with a 3/3 score to achieve the norm. The evaluation of the game between Yip and Vaishali remained close to equality according to the engine throughout and ultimately ended in a draw.
Another former Women’s World Champion in the field, Alexandra Kosteniuk, has recovered somewhat from her disastrous 0/4 start, drawing her third consecutive game. Her match against Humpy Koneru—a clash between the two players at the bottom of the standings—remained balanced throughout. This pair has a long history of facing each other in tournaments: they first met in 2002, but Kosteniuk had to wait nearly 20 years to secure her first victory over Koneru at the Cairns Cup!
