FIDE Woman's World Championship - 2008
The
Woman's World Championship started with a magnificent opening staged in a huge
open air theatre. As can be
seen from the accompanying picture courtesy of the official web site and
Chessdom, it was very well attended.
Although the first round did not produce any major upsets it did provide for lot's of excitement as 5 matches had to go into the tie-break phase on Sunday. Of these 2 produced a winner during the rapid play while 1 ended at the 2nd playoff. The last 2 had to go into sudden death.
From an African perspective our 3 competitors got knocked out in the first
round. Although one might be dissapointed the results were not unexpected as the
rating difference was typically 400 points. Yifan Hou from China was the first
to defeat Mona Khaled from Egypt by 2 points to 0. Koneru Humpy from India also
defeated Yarsa Alaa El Din from Egypt by 2 to 0. Anzel Solomons from South
Africa, the
lowest
rated player in the tournament managed to hold the World Champion Yuhua Xu from
China to a
draw in their second match.
After the game Anzel was interviewed by the journalist and declared that she was impressed by the organization and satisfied with her play. The full interview can be read here.
Draw for the second round:
|
|
Name | Rtng | Name | Rtng | ||
| Round 2 Match 01 | Round 2 Match 09 | |||||
| RUS | Matveeva, Svetlana | 2412 | Default | |||
| CHN | Xu, Yuhua | 2483 | RUS | Kosteniuk, Aleksandra | 2510 | |
| Round 2 Match 02 | Round 2 Match 10 | |||||
| IND | Koneru, Humpy | 2622 | LTU | Chmilyte, Viktorija | 2508 | |
| Default | RUS | Kosintseva, Nadezhda | 2460 | |||
| Round 2 Match 03 | Round 2 Match 11 | |||||
| MGL | Mongontuul, Bathuyang | 2406 | IND | Harika, Dronavalli | 2461 | |
| CHN | Hou, Yifan | 2557 | SLO | Muzychuk, Anna | 2504 | |
| Round 2 Match 04 | Round 2 Match 12 | |||||
| BUL | Stefanova, Antoaneta | 2550 | CHN | Ruan, Lufei | 2499 | |
| CHN | Ju, Wenjun | 2389 | ARG | Amura, Claudia | 2345 | |
| Round 2 Match 05 | Round 2 Match 13 | |||||
| CHN | Tan, Zongyi | 2387 | UKR | Gaponenko, Inna | 2468 | |
| SWE | Cramling, Pia | 2544 | USA | Rohonyan, Katerine | 2321 | |
| Round 2 Match 06 | Round 2 Match 14 | |||||
| POL | Gasik, Anna | 2211 | VIE | Nguyen, Thi Thanh An | 2323 | |
| ARM | Mkrtchian, Lilit | 2436 | ITA | Sedina, Elena | 2344 | |
| Round 2 Match 07 | Round 2 Match 15 | |||||
| CHN | Shen, Yang | 2445 | POL | Socko, Monika | 2473 | |
| CHN | Zhao, Xue | 2522 | HUN | Hoang Thanh Trang | 2487 | |
| Round 2 Match 08 | Round 2 Match 16 | |||||
| RUS | Kosintseva, Tatjana | 2511 | GER | Paehtz, Elisabeth | 2481 | |
| USA | Zatonskih, Anna | 2446 | UKR | Ushenina, Anna | 2476 | |
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