At the Dole Trophy in Aix-en-Provence, a standout moment occurred in the tournament’s opening round when 11-year-old English chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan achieved a landmark victory. Competing for Harrow, Sivanandan triumphed over France’s 19-year-old grandmaster Marc’Andria Maurizzi, who had a rating of 2628. This result broke a world age record for a girl defeating a grandmaster with a rating over 2600, cementing her place in the chess history books.
A rare upset and a historic margin
Maurizzi, the reigning French champion and 2023 world under-20 junior champion, held the upper hand for the first 27 moves of the match. However, a significant blunder during the game gave Sivanandan a decisive opening. She used the opportunity to capture his queen with minimal losses, flipping the game’s momentum in her favor. Though Sivanandan had already secured two earlier wins against grandmasters, this was by far the most notable and prestigious.
The previous record for a girl defeating a 2600+ grandmaster at such a young age dated back to 1988, when Judit Polgar, the all-time number one female player, accomplished the feat. Polgar was just 12 years and two months old when she beat the experienced grandmaster Lajos Portisch at the Hungarian Championship. Now, at 11 years and four months, Sivanandan has joined an elite list of pre-teens to achieve this distinction.
Rising star with a clear trajectory
Sivanandan’s early success in the Dole Open continued with a strong performance in the third round. She secured a draw against Israeli grandmaster Maxim Rodshtein, who was once the number two in his country and had a peak rating of 2710. Rodshtein has won major events, such as the Israel Championship and the Rilton Cup in Stockholm. Despite a loss in the second round to Benny Aizenberg, an international master from Israel, Sivanandan remains in the running to earn her second Women’s Grandmaster norm.
The young English player’s journey to greatness is already impressive. She achieved her first WGM norm at the age of 10 during the same Dole Open in 2025. That performance set a world age record at the time. With 3.5 points from seven games so far in this competition, Sivanandan may need just two more draws in the final two rounds to achieve her next WGM norm and inch closer to the grandmaster title.
Contrast in fortunes across the globe
While Sivanandan’s rise is remarkable, reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju has struggled with a difficult stretch. His performance at the recent Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters event was disappointing, as he failed to win a single game and finished at the bottom of a field of eight. Gukesh, who is now ranked 31st in live ratings with a score of 2703, is facing mounting pressure ahead of his title defense in Samarkand against challenger Javokhir Sindarov.
Gukesh’s struggles have persisted throughout 2026, following poor results in the Wijk aan Zee, Prague, and Oslo tournaments. His form is critical to his upcoming world title match, and the recent event in Chennai has only added to the uncertainty around his ability to perform at his best. The Samarkand Olympiad, where the title match will take place, marks a crucial turning point for the reigning champion.
The political landscape in chess is also shifting, with the Fide presidential election set to take place in September during the 2026 Olympiad in Samarkand. Incumbent Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian president of Fide, has faced new challenges after being sanctioned by the EU. These sanctions include a visa ban and an asset freeze, allegedly due to his involvement in chess events held in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Dvorkovich has since stepped back from his duties, and Viswanathan Anand, the former world champion and current Fide deputy president, is serving as interim president.
Nominations for the presidential race have opened, with four candidates currently in the running. These include Dvorkovich, who was expected to seek re-election, and his potential successor Timur Turlov, president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation. Other candidates are Jan Henric Buettner, the founder of Freestyle Chess and a German multi-millionaire, and Wadim Rosenstein, another German billionaire. The Fide presidential election will have significant implications for the direction of international chess and the governance of the sport.
With the chess world watching both the rise of prodigies and the struggles of top players, the coming months promise to be as exciting as they are unpredictable. Sivanandan’s record-breaking journey and Gukesh’s quest to reclaim his form set the stage for a year full of drama and potential.