FIDE World Cup: Divya Deshmukh awarded wild card entry

India's Divya Deshmukh has been handed a wildcard entry to the upcoming 2025 FIDE World Cup, which will be held in Goa from 30 October next month.

This development comes after a last-minute cancellation of one of the participants and after the reigning women's world champion Ju Wenjun and former women's world champion Hou Yifan declined FIDE's wildcard invites.

"GM Divya Deshmukh, the reigning FIDE Women’s World Cup winner, has been awarded a wild card for the FIDE World Cup 2025 in Goa by the FIDE President," FIDE said in a statement.

This was days after FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky mentioned that FIDE won't extend wild card invites to any Indian players and that decision laid with All India Chess Federation as the hosts.

"FIDE is not distributing wild cards for Indian players in Goa. There is a quota for AICF as hosts to decide on the local wild cards," Sutovsky had said.

"Of course, all the highest-rated Indian players are already in, qualifying one way or another, but it is up to AICF to decide - who will join them and get the wild cards," he further added in a social media post.

The 19-year-old Deshmukh is one of the six players to be awarded wildcard entries by FIDE for the prestigious event.

USA's Abhimanyu Mishra, and Andy Woodward were the first two to be awarded the wildcard spots.

Argentina's fast rising Faustino Oro, reigning world rapid champion Volodar Murzin, and Austria's Kirill Alekseenko are the others who will feature in the 2025 FIDE World Cup via wildcard entries.

The 2025 FIDE World Cup will be the second straight event where Deshmukh competes in the open section. She was handed a wild card entry to the open section of the recently concluded 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss. 

Deshmukh had finished 81st in that tournament with 5 points in 11 rounds.