Prime Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy has introduced her resolution to withdraw from the FIDE Girls’s Candidates Match, citing private security and well-being as her major concern. The match, which begins on March 28 on the Cap St Georges Lodge and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, is the one pathway to the Girls’s World Championship match.
Koneru Humpy put up
Taking to X on Sunday, Humpy wrote, “After deep reflection, I’ve taken the tough resolution to withdraw from the FIDE Girls’s Candidates Match. No occasion, irrespective of how vital, can come earlier than private security and well-being. Regardless of the assurances offered, I don’t really feel absolutely safe below the present circumstances. It is a painful however needed resolution, and I stand by it.”
The 38-year-old veteran, who certified for the Candidates after ending runner-up on the 2025 Girls’s World Cup, has beforehand expressed considerations about travelling amid ongoing tensions within the Center East. Whereas her withdrawal will permit the subsequent eligible participant, Anna Muzychuk, to take her place, it might have wider implications for Indian chess, each by way of illustration and potential monetary penalties.FIDE rules permit for fines as much as €10,000 if a participant withdraws with out a passable cause, although the ultimate resolution rests with the FIDE Council. With Humpy stepping again, India will nonetheless be represented within the Girls’s Candidates by R Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh, whereas R Praggnanandhaa will lead the nation within the open part.Humpy’s resolution highlights the fragile stability elite gamers face between aggressive ambition and private safety in unsure occasions.
