Teenaged Indian chess player Divya Deshmukh earned the biggest success of her career by clinching the FIDE Women's World Cup with a tie-break win over compatriot and more experienced Koneru Humpy on Monday.

The victory for the Nagpur player came after the two classical games played on Saturday and Sunday ended in draws. She has also qualified for the Candidates Tournament by entering the finals.

A three-time gold medallist at the Olympiad, Deshmukh has also won multiple gold medals at the Asian Championship, the World Junior Championship as well as the World Youth Championship.

“I need time to process it. I think it was fate, me getting the Grandmaster title this way. Because before this, I didn’t even have one norm, and before this tournament, I was thinking ‘Oh, where can I get my norm’ and now I’m a Grandmaster,” said Deshmukh in an interview with FIDE right after clinching the title.

Divya Deshmukh is now the fourth Indian woman to become a GM, after Humpy, R. Vaishali, and Harika Dronavalli.

She became the 88th Grandmaster of the country and if she continues to remain resolute in her endeavour she has the ability to achieve great success.

Despite ending up on the winning side on Monday, Divya believes her endgame skills need further polishing.

“I definitely need to learn endgames. I’m pretty sure at some point I messed it up. I’m not sure how. It should have been an easy win. I think I should not allow g4. But I think maybe I should just go rook a3, rook f3, rook g3, and that should be a win,” said the 19-year-old.

She is also hoping that the World Cup win, the biggest triumph of her young career, will lead to more glories.

“It definitely means a lot. But of course, there’s uh there’s a lot more to achieve. So this I’m hoping this is just a start,” added Deshmukh.

The 38-year-old Humpy is one of the most accomplished and compact players who has been the flag-bearer of Indian women's chess for more than two decades. She has won countless titles, including two World Rapid Championships, two Asian Games gold medals and has also been a part of the Chess Olympiad gold-winning team.

Out of a Petroff defense, Divya got an isolated Queen pawn middle game and sacrificed a pawn to give Humpy better prospects in the opening tiebeaker. However, Humpy returned the favour with her clock ticking away, and soon enough she was staring at a position where she had a rook, bishop and a pawn against Divya's Queen.

The position, however, remained close to being equal and Humpy drew quite easily in the end.

In the return game, Humpy employed the Catalan opening and again Divya was well prepared as she equalised without much ado. Humpy had sacrificed a pawn early but the ensuing queen-and-rook endgame was just a draw.

It was on the 40th move that Humpy lost her cool and tried to invade the opposition through a pawn sacrifice. Divya could have done better but the rook-and-pawns endgame she reached was still a draw.

This was Divya's day as Humpy again ran a bit short of time and blundered in the endgame again, leading to a theoretically won position for Divya.

The fortunes in this game fluctuated between a draw and a win for Divya for a long time, till the Nagpur girl prevailed.