August Top 25 Women's Rankings: Zhu Jiner to No. 2, Divya back on the rise!

The last three months, we just witnessed the most jam-packed part of the chess calendar for sure. Three super-tournaments, two new GMs, the overall Grand Prix decided, and the World Cup. Almost everyone was in action. Almost everyone changed ranking. Who’s at the top now?

If you’re new or you haven’t seen my previous sets of rankings, these are the Top 25 women’s chess players based on both results and performance across all OTB formats in the past two years, with emphasis on classical and the most recent 12 months. (Check out here for the full methodology.)

New rankings (August 2025)

This set of rankings includes everything through July 2025. The newest tournaments include the final Women’s Grand Prix leg, the overall Grand Prix series, Norway Chess, the Cairns Cup, and the World Cup. Last year’s Norway Chess and Cairns Cup are no longer part of the most recent 12 months.

Here are the new rankings!

The August 2025 Top 25. Credit: @OnTheQueenside.

Shuffle at the top

Zhu Jiner tied for first again in the final leg of the Grand Prix to win the overall Grand Prix series by a wide margin and clinch the first spot in the Candidates. She’s the first player ever in Women’s Grand Prix history to tie for first or better in all her Grand Prix legs in a single series. Not to mention, she did so with 2600-level performances in every leg. Performance-wise, the only players on her level are Ju Wenjun and Lei Tingjie, and she’s played more than twice as many games as they have. With all that, she’s earned a jump of +3 up to the No. 2 spot in the rankings.

2024-25 FIDE Women’s Grand Prix series champion and new No. 2 Zhu Jiner. Credit: FIDE / P Nikiel.

Divya Deshmukh had a standout year in 2024, peaking at No. 6 in the Top 25, but this year had been going rather slowly. It looked like she wasn’t continuing her momentum from last year, but really it just took a little longer. As only the No. 15 seed in the World Cup, Divya wasn’t one of the favourites, especially since she was due to face No. 2 seed Zhu Jiner — who had beaten her three times in a row — in the Round of 16. But Divya amazingly was able to knock Zhu Jiner out, and would go on to knock out three more Top 10 seeds, including Humpy in the final, to claim the title and all sorts of rewards. She got a spot in the Candidates, gained the GM title directly, earned the $50,000 top prize, received a $350,000 award from her state government, and moves up +4 to No. 5 in the rankings.

2025 World Champion and new No. 5 Divya Deshmukh. Credit: FIDE / Anna Shtourman.

With an all-time record 8 super-tournaments in the past 12 months, competition is tough at the top. Anna Muzychuk won an amazing three tournaments in a row — two Grand Prix legs and Norway Chess — but only moved up to No. 4 because No. 3 Humpy Koneru has two Grand Prix shared-firsts and a World Cup runner-up to go along with her World Rapid Championship. Meanwhile, the World Championship runner-up Tan Zhongyi dropped to No. 6, and Aleksandra Goryachkina with her two Grand Prix shared-firsts and Candidates spot is down to No. 7.

Norms, norms, and more norms

Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five GM norms were made since the last rankings back in May. Besides Divya’s direct norm and title in the World Cup, Bibisara Assaubayeva finally made her final GM norm to earn the GM title as well, cementing her place in the Top 10.

But the ones that led to the biggest ranking jumps were the ones by the more up-and-coming players. If Carissa Yip and Leya Garifullina didn’t make any GM norms this year, I don’t think anyone would have surprised. But they proved everyone wrong, and did so in style. Carissa didn’t just make her 2nd GM norm, she also won the Cairns Cup, and did so as the 2nd-lowest-seed. That puts her on the doorstep of the Top 10 at No. 11. Garifullina didn’t just make her 1st GM norm, she beat four 2540+ GMs and compiled a performance of 2683, the highest GM norm performance by a woman in an open in 16 years.

2025 Cairns Cup champion and new No. 11 Carissa Yip. Credit: Lennart Ootes.

The last GM norm was made by Oliwia Kiołbasa, who recently came back up to chess full-time and is now already back to 2400. If she keeps that up, she’ll make her Top 25 debut soon.

Race for the Candidates

If you’ve been paying attention to women’s chess, you probably know there have been six and only six players that clearly deserve a Candidates spot. If they all make it, that leaves two “surprise” spots that are up for grabs.

Two of the six already clinched their spots in the Grand Prix: Zhu Jiner and Aleksandra Goryachkina. Two more of the six clinched their spots in the World Cup: Humpy Koneru and Tan Zhongyi. That leaves two more deserving players who still haven’t claimed their spots: Anna Muzychuk and Lei Tingjie. Anna currently leads the Women’s FIDE Circuit and is the favourite to qualify through that route if she doesn’t make it through the Grand Swiss. But for Lei Tingjie, we just got the shocking news that she withdrew from Grand Swiss, making it close to impossible for her to qualify. With Tingjie likely out, that means we should have three surprise qualifiers in the next Candidates.

2026 Candidates picture. Credit: FIDE.

For the three surprise spots, Divya Deshmukh already claimed the first one. That still leaves two more surprise spots to be decided. At least one will be decided at the Grand Swiss guaranteed. The least surprising option might be Bibisara Assaubayeva. She shockingly withdrew from the World Cup to play the Freestyle Grand Slam instead, but she probably has a better chance through the Grand Swiss anyway. Bibisara has excelled at Swiss events in general, coming close to her final GM norm on numerous occasions before she finally got it. The other least surprising name might be Vaishali, the Grand Swiss defending champion. But curiously, she hasn’t played a single Swiss since in the nearly two years since winning the Grand Swiss, putting her chances in doubt.

All in all, with at least one and possibly two surprise Candidates spots up for grabs and no clear favourite, the Grand Swiss could really be anyone’s game.

Next GMs

With the top two IMs in the May rankings — Divya Deshmukh and Bibisara Assaubayeva — both claiming their GM titles, the entire Top 10 is now all GMs. That raises the question: who is going to be the next GM?

For that, the rankings already present a good picture. Carissa Yip, at No. 11, might be the closest with 2 GM norms, but she still also needs 42 Elo to reach 2500. Then at No. 13 is Polina Shuvalova, who has already reached 2500, but still needs two more norms. The next two, No. 15 Leya Garifullina and No. 16 Teodora Injac, are still quite a bit away, with only one norm each. Overall, that might be it for new GMs this year, but things can change fast.

The next set of rankings will feature the Grand Swiss. The Candidates picture will be much clearer by then too.

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