Historic win: Bodhana Sivanandan, aged 10 years, becomes youngest girl to defeat a grandmaster
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Historic win: Bodhana Sivanandan, aged 10 years, becomes youngest girl to defeat a grandmaster")
For representational purpose only Photograph: (Pexels)
At 10 years, five months and three days, Sivanandan broke the record set by American Carissa Yip, who was 10 years, 11 months and 20 days old when she defeated a grand master in 2019, as per the FIDE
A 10-year-old British girl has become the youngest female player ever to defeat a grandmaster. Bodhana Sivanandan, from northwest London, beat 60-year-old grandmaster Pete Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool on Sunday. At five months and three days shy of 10 years old, Sivanandan surpassed the achievement of American Carissa Yip, who was 10 years, 11 months and 20 days old when she beat a grand master in 2019, as per the International Chess Federation (FIDE).
Sivanandan has now attained woman international master status, one rung below the female-only woman grandmaster title; the top accolade in chess is grandmaster, held by the likes of current world chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju and world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen.
Her father spoke to the BBC in 2024 that "nobody at all" from their family had ever done well at chess.
Sivanandan explained she learned the sport during the Covid pandemic when she was five years old, after one of her dad's friends gave them some books and toys. "In one bag, I used to see a chessboard, and I was fascinated with the pieces," she was quoted saying to the BBC.
"I wanted to play with the pieces as toys. But instead, my dad told me that I could play the game, and then I began from there. Last year, Sivanandan was the youngest individual to be chosen to compete for England abroad at any sport. She was chosen to compete for the nation at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, where all the other team members were 20, 30, or 40 years old.
Malcolm Pein, England chess team manager, said the schoolgirl was among the greatest British chess prodigies he had ever witnessed. She was also part of a group of young chess players who were invited by then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to 10 Downing Street to celebrate the government's significant new GBP 1 million package of investment for the game.
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