R Praggnanandhaa's sister R Vaishali brought laurels to India as she clinched a bronze at the World Blitz Championship in the women's section. Vaishali's achievement came after she got the better of China's Zhu Jiner 2.5-1.5 in the quarter-finals.
Her run at the World Blitz Championship could have been more glorious but it wasn't meant to be as she was outclassed by another Chinese Ju Wenjun. Ju Wenjun beat Vaishali 0.5-2.5 in the semi-final.
Ju Wenjun went on to claim the world title as she pipped her compatriot Lei Tingjie 3.5-2.5.
India's legendary chess player and the vice-president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Viswanathan Anand, took to X to congratulate Vaishali on her memorable feat.
"Congratulations to Vaishali for taking bronze. Her qualification was truly a power packed performance. Our Waca Chess mentee (WestBridge Anand Chess Academy) has done us proud," the five-time world champion wrote on 'X'.
"We are so happy to be supporting her and her chess. What a way to wrap up 2024. In 2021, we thought we would get stronger chess players but here we have it a World Champion (Humpy) and a Bronze medallist (Vaishali)!" he wrote.
In the 'Open' section, Norway's Magnus Carlsen was forced to share the Blitz title with Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi. The world number one, Carlsen couldn't pull off the victory as three sudden-death games failed to produce an outcome.
"We reached a point where it had been a long day. We played many games, we had three draws and I felt that I could keep playing. But it was a nice solution to share the win, it was a good way to end it," Carlsen was quoted as saying by PTI.
