At just 10 years old, Bodhana Sivanandan won the 2025 UK Women’s Blitz Championship, finishing far ahead of a strong field of experienced players.
Her victory not only earned her the national women’s blitz title but also pushed her into the top 50 women’s blitz players in the world, with a new blitz rating of 2329, placing her approximately 42nd globally, according to 2700chess.
Her performance sparked congratulations from across the chess world. The English Chess Federation proudly announced: “Congratulations to Danny Gormally and Bodhana Sivanandan, winners of the 2025 UK Open Blitz Final and Women’s Final.”
Grandmaster Matthew Sadler, one of England’s most respected chess commentators, also praised her achievement, saying that he and Natasha Regan “really enjoyed watching them play this afternoon.”
A Dominant Run Through 15 Rounds
The final standings of the women’s championship reveal just how dominant Bodhana was. Competing as the top seed with a pre-tournament rating of 2291, she scored an impressive 13.5 out of 15, finishing two full points ahead of second-place WGM Elmira Mirzoeva. Her performance rating of 2327 underscored the quality and consistency of her play.
Her game-by-game results were astonishing. She opened the tournament with a perfect run, winning her first eight games in a row. Along the way, she defeated several experienced Woman FIDE Masters, including Ruqayyah Rida, Kamila Hryshchenko, Hong Nhung Nguyen, and Elis Denele Dicen.
Her only non-winning results were a draw in round nine against WFM Eugenia Karas and a surprise loss to WFM Zoe Varney in round thirteen. But she quickly bounced back and closed the tournament with victories over WGM Mirzoeva and WFM Hng Mei-Xian Eunice, securing her championship title with style and confidence.
A New Rating Milestone
Even before this event, Bodhana was already recognized as one of the top young talents in the world. But her performance at the UK Women’s Blitz Championship took her reputation to another level. The 38.4-point rating gain raised her blitz rating to 2329.4, placing her firmly inside the world’s top 50 female blitz players—a nearly unheard-of achievement for someone so young.
This result adds to a growing collection of milestones that have made Bodhana one of the most talked-about rising stars in modern chess.
A Prodigy With a Rapid Rise
Bodhana’s chess journey has been dramatic from the moment she began playing. Born on March 7, 2015, in London to parents originally from Tiruchirappalli, India, she started learning chess during the 2020 COVID lockdown, when she was just five years old. Within fifteen months, experts were already calling her “exceptional.”
In 2022, she won all 24 games at the European Schools Championship in Rhodes, taking home three gold medals. That same year, her performance in the British Championship impressed grandmasters and journalists alike. She defeated the reigning Under-12 champion and only fell to GM Keith Arkell, who remarked that he won “only because of her inexperience.”
By age eight, she had earned multiple international medals, including silver in both rapid and blitz at the European Under-8 Girls Championship. Lawrence Trent described her play as “breathtaking” and predicted she would become “one of the greatest the game has ever seen.”
Breaking Records Again and Again
Bodhana has spent the last few years rewriting record books. In 2023, she became a Woman Candidate Master. In 2024, she rose to World No. 1 among under-10 girls and earned the Woman FIDE Master title. She was also selected for England’s women’s team at the 2024 Chess Olympiad, becoming the youngest athlete ever chosen for a full England national team in any sport.
Her progress accelerated even further in 2025. In July, she became the youngest player in history to earn a Woman Grandmaster norm, surpassing the legendary Hou Yifan’s record. In August, she defeated grandmaster Peter Wells at the British Championship, becoming the youngest girl ever to beat a grandmaster and securing her final norm for the Woman International Master (WIM) title.
A few weeks later, in October, she scored another sensational victory by defeating former Women’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk at the European Chess Club Cup.
Rewatch the tournament here
I’m Xuan Binh, the founder of Attacking Chess, and the Deputy Head of Communications at the Vietnam Chess Federation (VCF). My chess.com and lichess rating is above 2300. Send me a challenge or message via Lichess. Follow me on Twitter (X) or Facebook.
