Bodhana Sivanandan, an 11-year-old chess player from England, achieved a significant milestone last Saturday by defeating France’s Marc’Andria Maurizzi, a grandmaster rated 2628, in the opening round of the Dole Trophy in Aix-en-Provence. Maurizzi, who was world under-20 junior champion in 2023 and the current French champion, held an advantage for the first 27 moves before blundering and losing his queen without adequate compensation.
Sivanandan’s victory establishes a new world age record for a girl defeating a grandmaster rated above 2600. The previous record was held by Judit Polgar, the all-time women’s number one player, who defeated GM Lajos Portisch in the 1988 Hungarian Championship at age 12 years and two months. At 11 years and four months, Sivanandan also became the fifth youngest pre-teen to defeat a 2600+ rated grandmaster. She had previously beaten two other grandmasters but neither of Maurizzi’s caliber.
Sivanandan’s performance at the tournament proved mixed following her opening success. She lost in the second round to Israeli international master Benny Aizenberg but delivered another strong result in the third round with a draw against GM Maxim Rodshtein, Israel’s number two player. After the sixth round, she had scored three points against mostly higher-rated opponents and was working toward her second women’s grandmaster norm, having achieved her first WGM norm at age 10, also a world age record, at the same tournament in 2025.
Elsewhere in competitive chess, Alireza Firouzja regained his position in the live classical ratings world top 10 after winning the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters. Reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju finished last in the eight-player event, failing to win any games and dropping to a record low rating of 2703. His difficult performance continues a challenging year that included poor results at multiple tournaments, with his world championship match against challenger Javokhir Sindarov approaching following the upcoming Olympiad in Samarkand.
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