Source Photo: Toi arrangement Ahmedabad: Gujarat’s Pragnika Vaka was recently crowned the World Champion in the category of girls under 7 at the Fide 2025 World Championship, which took place in Vrnjack Banja in Serbia on 20 to 28 March. The girl from Surrat scored the perfect nine out of nine points and was the only Indian who won the gold medal in all age categories.
The competition was attended by twenty-two students from India, which took place in six categories (U-7, U-9, U-11, U-13, U-15, U-17). In addition to Pragniky’s Gold, India won two silver medals-in the categories of girls U-7 and U-11. Bijesh Divi wrapped silver in the Girls category U-11, while OM Esh Gottumukala required silver in the open category U-7.
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“Pragnik has developed an interest in playing chess by watching her older sister Varenya. Varenya is an already established chess player in Gujarat,” said her father Ramanadh Toi. “During Covid, she started watching her sister games and developed an interest in playing. That she had achieved international success in one year and half of the chess play shows her caliber.”
Varenya has not yet been able to achieve the success of her younger sister, who surprised her father.
“Varenya appeared as a district and then the state champion in her age category. However, she escaped her success at national level. Surprisingly, Pragnik won state level and was at domestic level. Now she has won gold in her first international tournament,” he said.
Ramanad said that he was convinced that Pragnik would win in Serbia, said, “I was sure I was the top five like Serbia players, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and other strong chess countries.” 2025.
As he taught his daughter to handle pressure at such a young age, Ramanadh said, “On Sunday I took them regularly to the bomb and allowed them to play in an open category with boys. This helped her overcome fear of playing under pressure.”
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