Turkmenistan is represented for the first time at the FIDE Women’s World Chess Cup 2025, which started in Batumi

From July 5 to 29, 2025, the FIDE Women’s World Chess Cup is being held in Batumi (Georgia). The tournament is attended by 107 of the world’s strongest chess players, among whom for the first time in history a representative of Turkmenistan is participating – the 19-year-old leader of the national women’s team, FIDE Women’s Master Lala Shokhradova (FIDE rating – 2135).Shokhradova won the right to participate thanks to the triumph of the Turkmenistan women’s team at the 45th World Chess Olympiad 2024 in Budapest (Hungary), where our chess players took first place in the C category.Unlike many chess tournaments, the World Cup is held according to the Olympic system (knockout) and lasts 7 rounds. In each round, two classical games are played (90 min + 30 min after move 40 + 30 sec per move). If the points are equal, a tie-break is held: rapid (15 minutes + 10 seconds per move), then blitz (5 + 3 and 3 + 2) until the winner is determined.In the first round, the opponent of our compatriot, seeded under number 90, was the international master and woman grandmaster from India Agrawal Vantika (23 years old, rating – 2388, 39th seed in the tournament).You can watch the confrontation live on the lichess.org portal. The results are published in real time on the chess-results.com portal.The Women’s World Chess Cup is a relatively new tournament organized by FIDE similar to the Men’s World Cup. The first Women’s Cup tournament was held in 2021, when Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) won. A Russian woman, Alexandra Goryachkina, also won the 2023 World Cup. The World Cup serves as a qualifier for the Candidates Tournament, the winner of which plays a match for the title of World Champion.It’s worth to note that the FIDE Men’s World Cup will be held from October 31 to November 27, 2025 (the venue is being specified). Turkmenistan will be represented by the leader of the men’s national team, International Grandmaster Saparmurat Atabayev. His participation became possible thanks to the outstanding success of the men’s team at the 2024 World Chess Olympiad in Budapest, where the team won the ‘small gold’ in category B and took 24th place in the overall standings.In 2015, Turkmenistan was already represented at the Men’s World Cup in Baku (Azerbaijan) by International Grandmaster Yusup Atabayev. In the first round he put up an impressive fight, losing in a tense tie-break (overall score 3:5) to three-time world rapid chess champion, Russian grandmaster Alexander Grischuk.