Press release by FIDE
Fresh off her fifth world title, Ju Wenjun tops the leaderboard in the 2024–25 women's series, setting an intense pace for her rivals
The highest-placed player of FIDE Women's Events qualifies for the Women's Candidates Tournament 2026, if she has not qualified by any other track. Three of the eight qualifying events of the series have been completed, and the race for the top spots is heating up.
Ju Wenjun, as the reigning champion, continues to assert her authority on the circuit. Ju has amassed an impressive 86.5 ranking points (RP), holding first place on the scoreboard. She collected 48 points after winning the 2024 Women's World Blitz Championship and 38.5 points from the shared 2nd-7th place in the Women's World Rapid.
Right behind Ju, Humpy Koneru sits a close second on 84 points, all earned from her victory at the 2024 Women's World Rapid in New York.
More than 20 points behind, in third place, is Tan Zhongyi. Like Ju, Tan shared 2nd-7th place in last year's World Rapid in New York, which netted her 38.5 RP. Tan, a former Women's World Champion herself, added another 25 RP after the just finished Women's World Championship match, which she lost to Ju by a 6½-2½ score.
Kateryna Lagno | Photo: Michal Walusza
Kateryna Lagno (pictured above), a multiple-time rapid and blitz world champion and the 2018 World Championship finalist, is currently fifth with 54.4 points - 16 from a third-place finish in the Blitz and 38.5 from a shared second in the 2024 World Rapid.
Further behind – on 38.5 RP – is a trio featuring former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, India's Harika Dronavalli and Uzbekistan's 16-year-old Afruza Khamdamova (pictured below). All three gained points in the Women's World Rapid in New York last December.
Afruza Khamdamova | Photo: Michal Walusza
Seventeen players remain in contention, and the standings are set to shift again with the Grand Prix series nearing its finale in Austria this May.
Dana Reizniece, a Woman GM and Deputy Chair of the FIDE Management Board, noted:
Every event in this series carries serious weight. This isn't just a race to the 2026 Candidates - it's where careers are forged, history is made, and records fall. Look at the field: it's a clash of generations and styles, and that's driving innovation and pushing women's chess to new heights. FIDE's format rewards consistency over headline wins - and sustaining that kind of form across this cycle is difficult. But that's exactly why only the best survive it.
The cycle continues with the conclusion of the Women's Grand Prix Series in May, followed by the Women's World Cup, the Women's Grand Swiss, and the 2025 editions of the Rapid and Blitz World Championships.
With former world champions like Alexandra Kosteniuk and Lei Tingjie still in the mix, and experienced contenders such as Harika Dronavalli and Koneru Humpy battling rising stars like Bibisara Assaubayeva and Carissa Yip, the race for the qualifying places remains wide open.
The full leaderboard can be found here.
Under the official regulations approved by the FIDE Council, the final score of each player is determined by the sum of their best five tournament results in the cycle.
In the event of a tie in the final rankings, the lowest-scoring event is removed in a stepwise tiebreak process. The top player in the overall standings, who has not otherwise qualified, earns a coveted place in the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament.
For more information about the regulations – see here.
The FIDE Women's Events 2025–2026 is an official ranking series that brings together the most prestigious FIDE-organized women's tournaments across a two-year cycle.
It serves both to reward consistent top-level performance and to determine qualifiers for the FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament 2026.
There are eight major tournaments which are part of these series, offering Ranking Points to the players. These are:
– Women's World Rapid Championship 2024
– Women's World Blitz Championship 2024
– Women's World Championship Match 2025 (only runner-up earns RP)
– Women's Grand Prix Series 2024–25 (final standings used)
– Women's World Cup 2025
– Women's Grand Swiss 2025
– Women's World Rapid Championship 2025
– Women's World Blitz Championship 2025
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