How Pragg’s pep talk convinced sister Vaishali to play the FIDE Grand Swiss

The news of R. Vaishali defending her 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss title in Samarkand, Uzbekistan has been creating waves since last night with Prime Minister Narendra Modi joining the cheerleaders. However, what may have eluded many a chess followers’ knowledge is that she had been contemplating to skip the tournament in the first place in the wake of a string of poor results on the circuit in recent months.

 The last two years has seen Indian chess on a roll with this year, Divya Deshmukh winning the World Cup with senior pro Koneru Humpy ending as runner-up and now the 24-year-old sibling of R. Praggnanandha becoming the third Indian woman after them to qualify for the 2026 Candidates series. It’s been certainly a dramatic turnaround for the Chennai girl who complained of a loss of confidence barely few weeks back after a disastrous outing at the Chennai Grand Masters where she finished with 1.5 points in nine rounds.

The result put her on the edge as it came on the back of a quarter final finish in Women’s World Cup where she lost to Tan Zhongyi, finished fifth out of a six-player field at the Norway chess women’s tournament, fourth in the women’s Grand Prix in Austria, sixth in the Pune Grand Prix and ninth in the Tata Steel Women's Challengers tournament.

The modest results, punctuated by the poor ones, created such a mental block that Vaishali confided in an interview with Chessbase India that she troubled her parents and was on the verge of pulling out of FIDE Grand Swiss event. This is where Pragg and GM Karthikeyan Murali stepped in to have endless conversations with her and convinced to take part in Uzbekistan. Karthikeyan, like Vaishali, is also from the coach RB Ramesh stable in Chennai.

 The conversations with Karthikeyan and Pragg helped her and Vaishali then spent the two weeks before the tournament knuckling down and preparing herself for the Grand Swiss. Vaishali admitted that she was getting caught out through middlegames and endgames continuously in Chennai – which resulted in a run of seven losses in a row. A full week of losing, in her own words, was ‘’so bad’’ for her mental state.

The fact that Vaishali began with three wins in a row at the Grand Swiss provided the shot in the arm she needed. The Swiss format, according to experts, is an extremely demanding one where one is unaware of the next opponent and are bound to face only in-form players on equal terms as winners play winners after each round.

Buoyed by the first first three wins against Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova, Eline Roebers and Olga Badelka, respectively, Vaishali found her bearings and there was no looking back. The next two, against IMs Ulviyya Fataliyeva and Guo Qi, were huge boosters. Then came the penultimate round win against Mariya Muzychuk, which really took the pressure off her before the final round and meant that she could focus on playing solidly against Tan. A draw with the Chinese, with whom Vaishali has had some headline grabbing contests in the past, helped the later zero in on the title.

Looking ahead, Vaishali’s win will now allow her a few months of quiet confidence where she can knuckle down and prepare for the Candidates. She has prior experience of being there as well and can once again pursue her World Championship dream.