2020 Cairns Cup

Humpy Koneru is an Indian chess grandmaster and current Women’s World Rapid Chess Champion. As a pioneer in women’s chess, she has followed in the path of Judit Polgár to numerous records. Koneru became the youngest woman ever to achieve the title of grandmaster at the age of 15 years, 1 month, 27 days, beating Polgár's previous mark by three months (a record eventually broken and still held by Yifan Hou). She went on to become the second female player, after Polgár, to cross the 2600 Elo rating mark in October of 2007. She currently stands at 2580 and is one of the top 20 players in India. This is her first time competing in the Cairns Cup as well as her first time playing at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

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.