Bodhana Sivanandan (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Ten-year-old British chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan scored a remarkable victory by defeating former world champion Maria Muzychuk at the European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece, on Sunday, becoming one of the youngest players to dethrone a former world champion.The young player from North London, who was born in London in 2015 to parents from Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, secured this historic victory while representing the 12th seeded She Plays to Win Lionesses.
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Despite her team’s 3-1 loss to Turkish Airlines in Round 1, Sivanandan’s victory stood out.The victory was particularly significant as Muzychuk, world number 13 with a FIDE rating of 2485, was ranked 280 points above Sivanandan’s 2205.“Seems like they’re beating GM every week now!” said England Grandmaster Danny Gormally.“It’s not every day that a 10-year-old kid beats a GM (and former world champion) in such style,” commented England’s number one Grandmaster David Howell.Grandmaster Susan Polgar, the women’s world champion from 1996 to 1999, described Sivanandan’s game as “impressive”.Earlier this year, Sivanandan became the youngest female chess player to defeat a grandmaster when she defeated 60-year-old grandmaster Peter Wells at the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool.Her victory, after 10 years, five months and three days, broke the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip. She also became the youngest player to secure the WGM norm during the same event.A Harrow schoolgirl who took up chess during the blockade made history in 2024 as the youngest person to represent England at international level in any sport at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.“English chess has been in the doldrums for so many years. We’ve had good players come through, make no mistake, but we haven’t had any great players for many years,” Gormally said.“And now suddenly we have a generation with GM Shreyas Royal and Bodhana and FM Supratit Banerjee and FM Ethan Pang and others who are really exciting. We don’t know how strong they’re going to be.”Sivanandan is part of a new generation of English chess talent who are making their mark in international competitions.
