Anna Muzychuk Beats Divya To Catch Leader On Day Of 4 Wins
GM Anna Muzychuk's second win in a row, against IM Divya Deshmukh, saw her catch GM Zhu Jiner in the lead of the 2025 Nicosia FIDE Women's Grand Prix on 3/4. It was a day of four wins for White, among them GMs Aleksandra Goryachkina, Harika Dronavalli, and Nana Dzagnidze all picking up their first wins of the event against IM Stavroula Tsolakidou, IM Olga Badelka, and GM Elisabeth Paehtz, respectively.
Round five starts on Wednesday, March 19, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 6:30 p.m. IST.
Nicosia FIDE Women's Grand Prix Round 4 Results
Anna Muzychuk caught Zhu Jiner in the lead, while Goryachkina and Harika moved to within half a point of the leaders.
Nicosia FIDE Women's Grand Prix Standings After Round 4
Round four of the Women's Grand Prix in Cyprus was brutal, with four wins and the only draw, between Mariya Muzychuk and Zhu, being the longest and one of the hardest-fought games of the day.
That gave a chance for the chasing pack, with Mariya's sister taking the opportunity to join the leader.
Anna Muzychuk 1-0 Divya Deshmukh
Anna continued her momentum from the day before to pick up a second win, despite admitting she'd been surprised by Divya's Caro-Kann ("it's not so easy to prepare against her because she plays a lot of openings") and that the position after the queens were exchanged should have been "about equal."
Muzychuk noted that Divya "wanted to complicate the position a little bit" with 17...f6 and 18...b5, but the Indian 19-year-old's play looked to be strong until she missed the chance to stop White's Ra6 plan that occurred in the game.
That win took Anna into the co-lead with Zhu Jiner, while two players moved up to share third place. One, ominously for her rivals, was Goryachkina, the winner of the first two Grand Prix legs she'd played.
Aleksandra Goryachkina 1-0 Stavroula Tsolakidou
Goryachkina's first win was aided by Tsolakidou's questionable decision to exchange off a powerful knight on d5 in a Rossolimo Sicilian position, though even after later needing to give up the exchange, the Greek star would have had chances if not for her serious time trouble.
When Tsolakidou missed a key move in the run-up to the time control, Goryachkina took over, and was able to finish things off with the crisp rook sacrifice 51.Rxg6+!.
The black bishop isn't in time to stop the a-pawn from queening.
Goryachkina was joined on 2.5/4 by Harika, who pounced on an early mistake by Badelka.
Harika Dronavalli 1-0 Olga Badelka
Harika sprung a surprise very early on, meeting 1.c4 e5 with 2.a3!?, reasoning that since her opponent had almost never played 1...e5 before, "I just wanted to play something on our own on the board." It was a mixed success, since after 2...d6 Harika spent seven minutes since she wasn't sure how to make the a3-move make sense.
The offbeat opening would be rewarded, however, when Badelka played 8...Qd7?, walking into 9.Bh6!.
Harika was "completely shocked" by her opponent's blunder, but as she calculated she realized that despite losing an exchange Black still gets significant compensation.
Harika explained that she had to calm herself down, but she managed, and though Badelka could have come close to equalizing with best play, the miniature win that followed was the more logical outcome of the game!
The day's other winner was Dzagnidze, who returned to a 50% score.
Nana Dzagnidze 1-0 Elisabeth Paehtz
Dzagnidze explained she went for a fight in today's round, playing the Blumenfeld Gambit that GM Gukesh Dommaraju had used to beat GM Ding Liren in game 11 of the recent world championship match. "I was a pawn down but I was trying to press because I had no other choice—it’s good that it worked out well!" said Dzagnidze, who found a brutal sting in the tail toward the end.
After all that drama the players deserve a break, but there's still one round to go before the rest day. The tournament crosses the half-way mark, with Zhu-Goryachkina and Tsolakidou-Anna Muzychuk the key games of the leaders.
Round 5 Pairings
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2025 Nicosia FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by WGM Anastasiya Karlovich and GM Alik Gershon.
The 2025 Nicosia FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the fourth of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs March 15-24 in Nicosia, Cyprus. Players have 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20+ players competes in three events; the top two qualify for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
- Round 3: Anna Muzychuk Beats Dzagnidze Twice To Climb To 2nd
- Round 2: Zhu Jiner Takes Sole Lead On 2/2
- Round 1: Tsolakidou, Zhu Jiner Grab Wins As Nicosia Women's Grand Prix Begins
- Goryachkina Wins In Monaco, Takes FIDE Women's Grand Prix Lead
- Goryachkina Wins Shymkent FIDE Women's Grand Prix
- Kashlinskaya Wins Tbilisi Grand Prix, Earns 2nd GM Norm
- FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024-2025: All The Info
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
