Overview
- Sivanandan defeated Ukraine’s Mariya Muzychuk on Oct. 19 in the European Club Cup in Rhodes while playing for She Plays to Win Lionesses, though her team lost 3–1 to Turkish Airlines.
- Muzychuk, the 2015 women’s world champion, was rated 2485 to Sivanandan’s 2205, a gap of roughly 280 FIDE points that made the result a clear upset.
- Experts described the performance as a near-perfect game, with England No. 1 David Howell calling it an “incredible win” and other grandmasters praising her play.
- The result extends a record-setting run that includes her August victory over GM Peter Wells, which made her the youngest female ever to beat a grandmaster, and a July event where she earned the youngest-ever WGM norm.
- The British prodigy from Harrow, who began chess during the lockdown and represented England internationally in 2024, is widely seen as part of a rising English generation yet still requires further norms and rating gains for a grandmaster bid.