Bodhana Sivanandan of Harrow also became the youngest player to defeat a great teacher.
A 10 -year prodigy of chess in the north -ovest of London has become the youngest person to win the title of international women’s master (Wim).
Bodhana Sivanandan of Harrow has also become the youngest player to defeat a great chess master during 2025 British British Championship at the beginning of this month.
In 2024, Bodhana was considered the youngest person to represent England internationally in any sport, if selected for the women’s team in England at the Chess Olympics in Hungary.
His father, Siva, said before the BBC that he had no idea where his daughter’s talent came from, since neither he nor his wife, both engineers, were good at chess.
The International Chess Federation has declared in its story of the social network that Bodhana “won the victory against the great 60 -year -old master Peter Wells in the last round of 2025 British Chess Championship in Liverpool”.
The Federation added: “The victory of Sivanandan, at 10 years, five months and three days, beats the 2019 record of American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days)”.
The new title of Bodhana – Female International Master – is the second highest granted exclusively to women, behind only the great female master’s degree.
The title of Great Master is the highest that a chess player can have and is maintained throughout his life.
Bodhana started playing chess at the age of five during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to her, the chess make her feel “well” and helps her to “many other things, such as mathematics and calculation”.
In an interview with the BBC during your visit to Chess Fest (Chess festival, In the Portuguese translation), held in Trafalgar Square, in central London, in July 2024, he said how he met the game.
“In 2020, I had Covidd and one of my father’s friends was returning to India. He had some toys and games and gave us. In one of the bags, I saw a chessboard and I was interested in the pieces,” he said.
“I wanted to use the pieces like toys. But my father said I could play and I started from there.”
Bodhana’s father Siva said that “nobody in the family” was familiar with chess before his daughter began to play.
“I tried to find out if any of my cousins or someone else in the family games, but nobody has energy or chess ability, nobody has participated in chess events,” he said.
“Overall, we are happy with everything that is happening. I hope it enjoys, plays well and performs well.”
The girl said she hopes to achieve her final goal: to become a great teacher.
Malcolm Pein, a master of international chess who manages a responsible charity institution of bringing the game to about 250,000 children from public schools, said that Bodhana is opening the way to girls and women in a game traditionally dominated by men.
“It is so centered, so modest, and at the same time it is absolutely ingenious in the chess. It can easily become the world champion, or perhaps a champion of the general world. And surely I think it will be a great teacher.”
Source: Terra
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