China, India, Russia and Ukraine head into women’s championship semi-final

By Errol Tiwari On In Chess with Errol |
Alexandra Kosteniuk, ex-women’s world champion of Russia, and member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the Women’s Chess Olympiads of 2010, 2012 and 2014, stormed into the quarter-final of the Women’s World Championship by defeating Sweden’s Pia Cramling. Kosteniuk’s principal competition will come from the Chinese and a lone Indian chess grandmaster, Harika Dronavalli. The Championship is wide open and there is no selected favourite. It ends March 3. (Photo: David Llada/Chessbase)  
Alexandra Kosteniuk, ex-women’s world champion of Russia, and member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the Women’s Chess Olympiads of 2010, 2012 and 2014, stormed into the quarter-final of the Women’s World Championship by defeating Sweden’s Pia Cramling. Kosteniuk’s principal competition will come from the Chinese and a lone Indian chess grandmaster, Harika Dronavalli. The Championship is wide open and there is no selected favourite. It ends March 3. (Photo: David Llada/Chessbase)  

Four nations, China, India, Russia and Ukraine, chess behemoths of the 21st century that impacted the world in their distinctive ways, have qualified to contest the semi-final of the elite Women’s World Championship in Tehran, Iran. The qualifiers, all grandmasters, are Tan Zhongyi, 2502 (China), Harika Dronavalli, 2539 (India), Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2549 (Russia) and Anna Muzychuk, 2558 (Ukraine). Zhongyi will oppose Dronavalli,