Ju Wenjun brushes aside Tan Zhongyi’s challenge to retain FIDE Women’s World Championship crown

Ju Wenjun remains the women’s chess champion of the world after defeating compatriot Tan Zhongyi in just nine games of the FIDE Women’s World Championship to retain the crown. In the contest, Tan had initially raced into the lead winning a game, Game 2, but then Ju went on a four-game winning streak immediately afterwards to enter the ninth game of the Women’s World Championship 2025 needing just a draw.
The 2025 FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship match between Ju and Tan was supposed to follow a 12-game format with the first player to score 6.5 points will be declared the winner.
Ju Wenjun and Tan Zhongyi during the Women’s World Chess Championship Game 8. (Anna Shtourman/FIDE)
Who is Ju Wenjun?
Ju Wenjun had defied the same opponent, Tan Zhongyi, in May 2018 to claim her first world championship crown. That was her seventh attempt at the Women’s World Championship. Since then, she has defended her crown four times. In March 2017, Ju Wenjun became only the fifth woman to cross the 2600 rating threshold, reaching a peak rating of 2604 in March 2017.
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After that, in 2018, Ju played in the 64-player knockout tournament as the top seed, where she secured victory in every round before the final without needing tiebreaks. She then defeated Kateryna Lagno in a tiebreak.
In 2020, she defeated GM Aleksandra Goryachkina to retain the crown after plenty of drama. She beat Goryachkina in the third game of a rapid tiebreak after the event had ended 6-6 in classical games.
Three years later, she defeated compatriot Lei Tingjie to stay the women’s world champion.
Ju Wenjun, currently ranked No 2 in the world in the women’s rankings l, is a native of Shanghai. She started playing chess at seven, and in 2004, aged 13, she won a silver medal in the Asian Women’s Chess Championship and qualified for her first Women’s World Championship in 2006. Story continues below this ad
What was remarkable about Ju Wenjun’s career path is that inspired Chinese legend Xie Jun, she eschewed junior competitions in favor of playing against adults from a young age.