Vaishali wins the Women's Candidates Tournament - 14

Vaishali Rameshbabu took her opportunities in the final round of the Women's Candidates tournament to beat Kateryna Lagno and combined with Bibisara Assaubayeva's draw with Divya Deshmukh meant she took clear first place. Vaishali's win means she will play the champion since 2018, Ju Wenjun. Vaishali is the elder sister of Praggnanandhaa. Anna Muzychuk drew with Zhu Jiner and Aleksandra Goryachkina beat Tan Zhongyi in the remaining games.

Javokhir Sindarov had already sewn up the Candidates in Round 13 and he engineered a very quick draw against Wei Yi to finish on +6 undefeated. Matthias Bluebaum came in a fighting mood against Anish Giri but it's not really his style and Giri impressively refuted his ideas. Fabiano Caruana also won his final game against Andrey Esipenko. Praggnanandhaa-Nakamura was a quiet draw.

Both events have been super, Sindarov seems to have taken huge strides and the rest of the year watching him should be very exciting. Anish Giri was probably the only other player to come out of the event with his reputation enhanced. The women's event was wild, fighting chess, I think many of the field will be regretting lost opportunities.

Final Standings: 1st Javokhir Sindarov, 10/14. 2nd Anish Giri, 8½. 3rd Fabiano Caruana, 7½. 4th Yi Wei, 7. 5th Hikaru Nakamura, 6½. 6th-7th Matthias Bluebaum and R Praggnanandhaa, 6. 8th Andrey Esipenko, 4½. 8 players.

Final Standings: 1st Rameshbabu Vaishali, 8½/14. 2nd Bibisara Assaubayeva, 8. 3rd Anna Muzychuk, 7. 4th-5th Jiner Zhu and Aleksandra Goryachkina, 7½. 6th Kateryna Lagno, 6½. 7th-8th Deshmukh Divya and Zhongyi Tan, 5½. 8 players.