Wenjun Ju
Hailing from China, current Women’s World Champion, Wenjun Ju has achieved a peak FIDE rating over 2600. During January 2020, She successfully defended her title against Aleksandra Goryachkina, who won the newly established 2019 Women’s Candidates Tournament. A titan of women’s chess, Wenjun Ju is the second highest rated woman behind fellow Chinese player Yifan Hou, and this rating currently puts her in the top 20 players in all of China. In addition to these accomplishments, Wenjun has numerous tournament victories to her name. These include being the winner of 2015-16 FIDE Women Grand Prix, 2009 and 2011 World Women Team champion, and 2010 and 2014 Chinese Individual Women Champion. As the top seed in Saint Louis, she will face some of her biggest rivals in women’s chess.