Just months after she became the youngest ever to beat a grandmaster, 10-year-old British wunderkind Bodhana Sivanandan has now become one of the youngest players ever to beat a former world champion. The Indian-origin Sivanandan beat Ukranian former title holder Grandmaster Mariya Muzychuk at the European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece.
Sivanandan’s victory ultimately didn’t convert into a win for her team, the 12th-seeded team She Plays to Win Lionesses, as they lost 3-1 to Turkish Airlines. However, the fact remains that her win alone has sent quite a few ripples through the chess world. “She seems to be beating a GM every week now!” the English Grandmaster Danny Gormally said. England’s number-one Grandmaster David Howell called it an “incredible win.” He added: “It’s not every day a 10-year-old defeats a GM (and former world champion) in such style.”
Apart from the fact that she is more than two decades older than Sivanandan and the tat she is a former world champion, the 33-year-old Muzychuk (2485), the Women’s world number 13, was rated 280 FIDE points above Sivanandan (2205).
Record-breaking run
In August this year, Sivanandan made history when she beat Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool and thus became the youngest chess player in history to defeat a grandmaster. Bodhana set the record at the age of 10 years, five months and three days to beat the record held by American Carissa Yip since 2019, who was 10 years and 11 months old when she defeated a grandmaster for the first time.
Bodhana, a Woman FIDE Master, traces her roots to Tamil Nadu’s Trichy, where her family lived until her father, Sivanandan Velayutham, who works in the IT sector, moved them to London in 2007. Bodhana was born and brought up in London and despite her young age, she has already become the face of British chess.
At the age of eight, she was even invited to 10 Downing Street in August 2023 by then British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he was planning to announce a financial package for chess in the UK. In 2024, Bodhana became the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.
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