Battle for the final Candidates spot: Women's Events 2024-25 race heats up

by ChessBase
12/18/2025 – The race for qualification in the FIDE Women's Events 2024–2025 is nearing its conclusion, with seven places in the Women's Candidates 2026 already decided. One final spot remains open, setting up a close contest ahead of the Women's Rapid and Blitz Championships in Qatar. Bibisara Assaubayeva currently leads the chase, but several experienced and emerging players remain within reach, ensuring a tense finish to the two-year qualification cycle.
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Press release by FIDE

The Women's Events 2024-2025 has entered its decisive phase. Following the triumphs of Vaishali Rameshbabu and Kateryna Lagno in the Women's Grand Swiss, all seven leading players in the Women's Events race secured qualification for the Women's Candidates 2026 through various pathways. The eighth and final spot in the competition – which will determine the challenger for the women’s world title – remains open.

Currently leading the race for that last berth is Bibisara Assaubayeva (99.4 points), who sits eighth, just behind the already-qualified players. Given her impressive resume in fast time controls, the two-time World Women's Blitz Champion appears to have the strongest claim on paper heading to the Women's Rapid and Blitz Championships 2025 (the last tournaments that are eligible for the two-year series).

Chasing her are Song Yuxin, Anna Muzychuk (both on 80 points), the winner of the 2022–23 Women's Candidates Lei Tingjie (62 points), and the experienced Harika Dronavalli (58.5). All four remain strong candidates for the final slot, provided they deliver strong results at the upcoming events in Qatar.

Further down the standings, young Afruza Khamdamova, former Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk (both on 38.5), Mariya Muzychuk (26.40), Nana Dzagnidze (25), Ulviyya Fataliyeva (20), and Irina Krush (20) still have mathematical chances. With a significant number of points available at the upcoming Women's Rapid and Blitz Championships, none of them can yet be ruled out.

FIDE Women's World Championship Cycle

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Each of these contenders faces the formidable challenge of outperforming the competition in the season's final events to claim the last coveted place in the Women's Candidates 2026.

We maintain a dedicated page on our website for the FIDE Women's Events 2024–2025, featuring the latest information on eligible tournaments, current standings and regulations.

In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.

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60m English New ideas in the Najdorf_E

‘New ideas in the Najdorf – a Power Play 18 Update’ aims to complement Daniel King’s popular DVD from last year ‘The Sicilian Najdorf - a repertoire for Black’. Such a dynamic and popular opening as the Najdorf is developing the whole time. On this download, Daniel King updates lines that were included on his DVD but also responds to viewers’ requests, considering lines that he omitted from his original repertoire. The lines examined on this update are: • 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 h3 e5 7 Nde2 • 5….a6 6 Bc4 in combination with the English Attack (Be3, f3 etc) • 5…a6 6 Be3 and the …a5 variation • 5…a6 6 Be2 and 9 Re1 • 5 f3 (instead of 5 Nc3) It isn’t necessary to have seen the original Najdorf DVD to understand the lines examined here – but it would help as they form part of a complete repertoire.