City‘S talented chess players, Woman International Master Divya Deshmukh and Grandmaster Raunak Sadhwani will be spearheading Indian challenge in the FIDE Online World Cadets and Youth (Under-10, U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18) Rapid Chess Championships which gets under way from Friday. Divya, who turned 15 and Raunak who will be 15 years old in a couple of weeks, will be the part of strong Indian girls and boys teams, respectively. A strong Indian cadet chess contingent will be taking up Asian rivals and are hopeful of making it to the knock-out round from the Asian leg of the meet.

 

The open category consists of GM Raunak Sadhwani, D Gukesh (U-16 and U-18), and P Iniyan (U-18) among others. The girls section comprises WIM Divya Deshmukh, Woman Fide Master Savitha Shri B (U-16 and U-18), Vantika Agrawal (U-18) and IM Rakshitta Ravi (U-16). The Indian side is optimistic after they played practice tournaments (rapid) in the past few months.