Owning the Arena

Chess

Koneru Humpy, 37: Comeback Queen

Ever since Koneru Humpy became a Grandmaster at the age of 15 in 2002—the youngest woman in the world to earn the title—she has often found herself the lone girl in a sea of men. At one national championship, she strung together seven wins in a row against top male players, startling the establishment. Some older opponents offered only a stiff handshake—or none at all—struggling to hide their vexation at being bested by a young woman. Over time, Humpy learned to keep her head down and let her moves speak, aware that each victory chipped away at a wall of prejudice. For nearly a decade, she stood alone at the summit of Indian women’s chess, a trailblazer without compatriots of her stature. She crossed the 2600 Elo rating barrier in her early twenties, becoming only the second woman ever to do so after Judit Polgár.

However, coming agonisingly close to becoming world champion more than once, she found public scrutiny grow heavier with each passing year. The chess federation officials—once eager to champion their young star—occasionally clashed with her over trivial matters, sapping her spirit. Critics whispered that Humpy’s game had stagnated, that she lacked the killer instinct to clinch the crown. “I am a very strong person, yet there have been times when I have doubted myself,” Humpy says, on a call from Vijayawada. Then came marriage and motherhood, making her step away from competition for the first time in her life. Returning to the world stage quietly at the 2018 Chess Olympiad, she felt like a stranger in a familiar land—the same board, the same hushed concentration, but many faces around her had changed. A year later, in late 2019, Humpy found herself in Moscow playing the World Rapid Championship—a format in which she had never been considered a serious contender. As the tournament progressed, she quietly defied every expectation, perhaps even her own. In the tense tiebreak that followed, Humpy’s nerves held steady and her calculations remained razor-sharp. Move by move, she seized the advantage and clinched victory, earning the title of Women’s World Rapid Champion. At 32 years of age, after years away from top form, she was a world champion at last.

Now, at 37, against all expectations, Humpy has reclaimed the crown, winning the 2024 FIDE Women’s World Rapid Championship, making her only the second woman besides Ju Wenjun to have won the title more than once. A second world title, won five years after her first, feels even sweeter—proof that 2019 was not a lucky final act, but merely one movement in an unfinished symphony. “I really need this win,” says Humpy. “I was disappointed with the way I played at the Norway Chess tournament last year. Really, I thought maybe I should stop playing tournaments—I had hit such a low note. I performed below my standard in the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz Tournament too,” she says. The chess world was getting younger, with fresh prodigies emerging every year, and Humpy was the veteran fighting to keep pace. Some events went well; in others she struggled, each setback tugging at her old doubts. Now, after reaffirming her elite status, she is on a race against her 20-year-old self, she says. She can’t bear the idea of sliding into mediocrity. She wants to improve her classical chess ranking and she is ready to face whatever new battles await, unafraid and unbeaten in spirit.

R Vaishali, 23: The Game Changer

It is a strange thing, to rebel against the very titles you once earned. To stand at the precipice and say: this is not enough, it never was. Despite being so young, R Vaishali has turned her gaze on the structure of chess itself, on the old scaffolding erected decades ago to separate women from men, to pin them into their own division, their own system of rewards. Woman International Master (WIM). Woman Grandmaster (WGM). Titles that sound like triumph, but which, she argued, bind more than they free.

She had walked the path herself, had stepped on each stone leading from WIM to WGM to Grandmaster (GM). And yet, she would dismantle them if she could. If the titles were removed, she said in an interview, more women would step into open tournaments, face the real battles, measure themselves against men, not against history’s expectations.

Some names come in pairs, like echoes of one another. R Vaishali. R Praggnanandhaa. First spoken together in the homes of chess enthusiasts, now inscribed together in the record books. The first brother-sister Grandmaster duo. Not a small achievement, but one they bear with quiet, unspoken pride. They do not indulge in sentiment. Chess is not sentimental. In 2024, Vaishali became only the third Indian woman ever to earn the Grandmaster title, joining the ranks of Koneru Humpy and Harika Dronavalli. This milestone was swiftly followed by a historic team gold at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Playing second board, Vaishali scored 3.5/4, an undefeated run. Her draw in the final round helped clinch India’s first-ever women’s Olympiad gold. In a Chess.com interview, Vaishali expressed immense relief, recalling the heartbreak of missing gold in 2022 and how she “could not sleep” before the final round due to that memory.

Vaishali’s rating climbed steadily through 2024. A highlight was her breakthrough past the 2500 Elo mark on the August 2024 FIDE rating list, reaching 2506. She gained 18 rating points from a stellar performance at the Biel Chess Festival (Challengers). At Biel, as the lowest-rated entrant, she started by winning her first three classical games in a row, even leading the event outright at one stage.

Vaishali has long been known as an aggressive, attacking player, preferring sharp tactics and dynamic play. She isn’t afraid to take risks; fans have seen her leave pieces en prise and conjure bold attacks, trusting her tactical vision to outweigh any positional downsides. One hallmark of Vaishali’s recent play is her willingness to avoid quick draws and seek battles. However, she is also learning when to temper aggression. For instance, she acknowledged missing conversion opportunities at Tata Steel 2025, indicating a focus on making practical decisions in critical moments. She is a player to watch, as her style evolves from a purely tactical, attacking inclination to a more universal and resilient approach, capable of both sharp attacks and patient endgames.

Cricket

Kashvee Gautam 21, Fast Bowler: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Tattooed biceps, bling drooping from earlobes, shaved sideburns, untucked shirt and a full-of-attitude send-off at the fall of a wicket: young Kashvee Gautam has all the makings of a genuine fast bowler. But none of that would’ve held any water if she hadn’t burst on to the scene with the ferocity seen at the ongoing edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), having taken nine wickets in just six games thus far for the Gujarat Giants.

The most wickets taken by an Indian in any season of the WPL, if you must know, was Saika Ishaque with 15. League debutant Gautam, all of 21 and yet to play for India in any format, is threatening to overhaul that record in her very first tryst with the big leagues.

Not many may have heard of her before this breakthrough season, but Gautam has long been knocking on the doors of greatness. When she was just 16, she became the first-ever Indian—female or male—to take all 10 wickets in a limited-overs game. At the Women’s Under-19 One-Day Trophy, Chandigarh’s Gautam wiped out all of Arunachal Pradesh with figures of 10/12 in 4.5 overs, inclusive of a hattrick. She did this without bringing any of the fielders into play, dismissing every batter either bowled or LBW.

Three years later, though, she went unpicked in the auction for the first-ever WPL season, only to be bought for ₹2 crore by the Gujarat franchise in the second season, even when her base price was ₹10 lakh, making her the most expensive uncapped Indian in the tournament. She was just 20 years old. But more life twists awaited this prodigy as a stress fracture forced Gautam to miss the 2024 season in its entirety. Yet, as a part of the travelling squad to simply observe the pros in action, she showed enough desire and promise for Gujarat’s head coach, Michael Klinger, to retain her at the same price. It paid off almost instantly.

In the six matches of WPL 2025 so far, Gautam has gone wicketless in just one game—the first one against Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Since then, she has lived up to the expectations that come with such a heavy price tag, truly entering the fore against former champions Mumbai Indians in Vadodara. Walking in at No 7 with Gujarat’s top-order in shambles, she bashed two fours and a six to score a sixth of the team runs herself, before dismissing Mumbai’s batting legends Harmanpreet Kaur and Amelia Kerr, both trapped leg before. Gujarat lost that match, but in their ranks, a winner was born.

In the very next match against Delhi Capitals, she got rid of Meg Lanning and Annabel Sutherland, Test heavyweights from the Australian team, before bowing at the end of her follow-through, Shubman Gill-style, for each of the three wickets she caused in Gujarat’s big win over UP Warriorz. With each bow, the curtain standing between her and the Indian team rose a little further.

Kiran Navgire, 30, Batter: The Hard Hitter

Cricket wasn’t even a viable hobby, let alone a career option, in the town of Mire, located in the district of Solapur, Maharashtra. Yet, television and the aura of MS Dhoni always allowed a girl to dream, so Kiran Navgire did, hoping to one day hit sixes for her country the way her hero once did. Simply beating the odds stacked against her makes Navgire’s journey from dreamer to an Indian cricketer a story by itself. But her courage to reinvent herself in an effort to cement her place in the national side during the ongoing Women’s Premier League (WPL), despite being nearly 31, is awe-inspiring.

Navgire’s career hasn’t quite taken off the way it once promised, when at the Women’s T20 Challenge of May 2022 (a precursor to the WPL), in her very first batting appearance no less, she smashed a 34-ball 69, with five sixes and as many fours, for Velocity. That made India’s selectors not only take notice but also include her in the women’s T20I squad by September that year. But with a high score of 10 in six matches, which included two ducks, Navgire was fast dropped by October 2022, never to be picked for the senior Indian team again. Navgire, however, is nothing if not resilient.

When in college, her coach used to send her in to bat with the tailenders because he didn’t think much of her batting and often discouraged her from pursuing the game as a profession by falsely claiming that there was no domestic set-up for women in India. None of that held her back from becoming not only an opener of repute, but the first Indian cricketer, man or woman, to notch an innings of over 150 runs in a single T20 game (162 not out for Nagaland against Arunachal Pradesh in the senior women’s T20 league).

The India snub in 2022 fortunately came on the heels of the inaugural season of the WPL in 2023, and Navgire was picked by UP Warriorz, whom she has represented ever since. In 2024, against reigning champions Mumbai Indians, she almost single-handedly chased down a target of 162 with a blistering half-century, peppered with four towering sixes and half-a-dozen fours.

But her lights-out approach meant that she was plagued with inconsistency, forcing her back to the drawing board in time for the ongoing edition of the WPL. A powerfully built woman, opener Navgire continues to cherish scoring runs with boundary-hits, but she has now added finding the gaps and running hard singles and doubles to her repertoire. The new awareness helped her come to the party in UP’s second game of the season, against now table-toppers Delhi Capitals in Vadodara. Batting first, she top-scored with a 27-ball 51 to put on display her technical changes.

Of the 15 women to have hit half-centuries in this WPL, Navgire is the only player to not currently be representing her country. That ought to change if she continues to score in the same vein.

Hockey

Savita Punia, 34, Goalkeeper: The Goal Guardian

Savita Punia had almost walked away from hockey in the early 2000s as she struggled to adjust to life at her hostel in school, battled homesickness, and remained uncertain about her future in the sport. But fate had other plans.

Nearly two decades later, on February 24, 2025, Punia would walk onto the turf wearing the Indian jersey for the 300th time against the Netherlands in the FIH Hockey Pro League 2024/25 at the Kalinga Hockey Stadium in Bhubaneswar, perhaps wondering under her goalkeeping kit about the sheer improbability of it all. Hockey had chosen her, unmistakably.

The milestone cemented her legacy as the second woman to achieve the feat after Vandana Katariya, as well as the second Indian goalkeeper, male or female, to get to the landmark after the legendary PR Sreejesh.

Hailing from Sirsa, Punia’s hockey journey began early, fuelled primarily by her grandfather’s love for the game and her father’s sacrifice to buy her first kit despite financial struggles. Her initial dream was simple—to don the Indian jersey once and make her parents proud. In 2007, she earned a spot at the national camp in Lucknow, where training alongside top goalkeepers reinforced the significance of playing for India. Her debut followed in 2008, and by 2010, she was part of the Indian team that secured a spot in the World Cup in Rosario, Argentina. However, earning a spot in India’s playing XI at the international level proved to be a bit more challenging. It wasn’t until 2011, at the age of 20, that she finally made her senior international debut.

And Punia hasn’t looked back since then.

Over the years, Punia has established herself as one of India’s finest and first-choice goalkeepers. If Chak De! India’s Vidya Sharma was the fictional last line of defence in a high-stakes finale, Punia has been the real-life counterpart on numerous occasions—her crucial saves against Australia in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics quarter-finals and the Netherlands at the Kalinga Stadium only reaffirming why the title of the “Great Wall of India” belongs to her. Her experience has proved invaluable in major tournaments, including the Rio Olympics 2016 (for which India qualified after 36 years), the 2017 Asia Cup (which India won), and the 2018 Hockey Women’s World Cup, where India reached the quarter-finals. Taking on the captaincy role post-Tokyo, she led India to a bronze medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, a title-winning campaign at the FIH Nations Cup in 2022, and back-to-back Women’s Asian Champions Trophy titles in 2023 and 2024.

Punia’s stellar performances have brought her top honours, including the Arjuna Award in 2018 and Goalkeeper of the Tournament titles at the 2017 Asia Cup and 2018 Asian Games. She further bagged the FIH Goalkeeper of the Year awards in 2021 and 2022, cementing her reputation as one of the best in the world. With over 300 international caps, she has been both a pillar of strength for her team and a role model for young players. Her legacy is already secure—and she’s not done yet!

Rutuja Pisal, 22, Forward: A Star is Born

“Today was Rutuja’s lucky day,” Odisha Warriors coach Janneke Schopman told reporters at Ranchi’s Marang Gomke Jaipal Singh Munda Astro Turf Hockey Stadium after her team lifted the inaugural Women’s Hockey India League title on January 26, 2025.

What Schopman didn’t say was the work that had been put in behind the scenes—Rutuja Pisal put in the hard yards alongside Olympic champions and Indian professionals in every match of the event, learning from the best and waiting patiently for her moment. Then, on the tournament’s biggest stage, when the moment finally arrived, she seized it. Two goals. A title-winning performance. An unlikely hero who made the hockey world sit up and take notice.

Pisal comes from Kolki, a quaint hamlet with limited road access and no rail connectivity, located in Maharashtra’s Satara district—a region known for producing talents like Akshata Dhekale, Kajal Atpadkar, Pooja Shendge, and the most prominent of them all, Vaishnavi Phalke. Each was discovered by Vikas Bhujbal, a former volleyball player and sport teacher, before making their mark in hockey.

Pisal’s Hockey5s journey began in 2022 when she represented India at the FIH Hockey5s in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2023, she was part of the Indian team that clinched its first-ever Women’s Junior Asia Cup title in Kakamigahara, Japan. The following year, in 2024, she featured in the Women’s FIH Hockey5s World Cup in Oman, where India finished as runners-up after falling to the Netherlands in the final. She ended the tournament as India’s second-highest goal scorer, behind Deepika Soreng. Her next big break came in the inaugural season of the Women’s Hockey India League, where she was snapped up by Odisha Warriors for ₹4.9 lakh. She had a quiet run—until the final. With the pressure on, she delivered in style, breaking her goal drought by finding the back of the net twice when it mattered most.

There was no stopping the 22-year-old from there on. Pisal made a statement on her senior international debut, scoring a fine field goal against England in the recently concluded FIH Pro League in Bhubaneswar. She followed it up with another goal against Spain, wrapping up the home leg on a high as India ultimately secured a victory over Olympic champions the Netherlands on February 25, 2025.

Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey, who has witnessed Pisal’s growth from close quarters, told Open, “The success of players like Pisal who hail from smaller towns is helping carry the torch of hockey to areas outside the usual zones. We have been organising zonal competitions, where our observers scout for new talent. We try to recruit them young.”

Rutuja Pisal’s rise is a testament to Indian hockey’s growing reach. From a quiet Maharashtra village to making her mark on the international stage, she has shown that talent, when given the right platform, can flourish anywhere. With the Women’s Hockey India League opening new doors, players like Pisal aren’t just success stories—they’re the future. And she’s only just warming up.

chesscrickethockeyKashvee GautamKiran NavgireKoneru HumpyR VaishaliRutuja Pisalsportswomen issue 2025women players