It came over two decades after Humpy scripted a first for an Indian female, with only a sporadic sprinkling of two more women – Harika Dronavalli in 2011 and Vaishali R in 2023 – thereafter before Divya’s breakthrough.

And so for Humpy, while the health of women’s chess in India is better than ever before now, she hopes it comes with a more consistent influx of women players from the country at the top level.

“We have improved drastically in women’s chess. Both Divya and Vaishali have performed very well. But we need a couple of more players from the next batch as well,” said the women’s world No.5. “I became GM in 2002, and have been in the world’s top 10 for more than 20 years. It took a long time for the next generation to enter the top of the rankings. Divya (ranked 12th) is now ready to break through, and Vaishali was there before she lost a few points.

“If we talk about the near future, we need to take care of the next set of players, so that we don’t have that much gap for them to break through. That aspect has to be taken very seriously.”

That will require a more collective vision and plan rather than leaving it to individual efforts, which, according to Humpy, has been the case so far.

“If we want to have a batch of women players coming out every time, it’s only possible if the federation or the government take it up as a project, and start supporting the players with training camps and other requirements,” said the 38-year-old.

“Just sending them for exposure trips by itself doesn’t help. They need to have combined training camps as well, so that they can improvise their game. Training in general and hiring seconds nowadays has become expensive. Not everyone can afford that.”

Humpy’s last competitive outing was the World Cup in July. She will return to the board for the Global Chess League (GCL) starting Sunday – she will play for Mumba Masters for a third straight season – before heading to the World Rapid and Blitz where she is the defending women’s rapid champion.

Spending time with her young daughter and being at a stage where she wants to “enjoy the sport more than run after tournaments” meant the extended break was welcome. It helped that her World Cup final run had sealed a spot in the 2026 Women’s Candidates, allowing her to skip the Grand Swiss.

“I didn’t expect to qualify (for the Candidates) through this (World Cup) knockout format,” she said. “I was aiming for the Grand Swiss. So this came unexpectedly.”

More so given her “disaster” 2024 in classical that made her “depressed” with the way she played. The World rapid title last December sparked a turnaround, and brightened her classical form in 2025. She finished joint leader at the Monaco Grand Prix and won the Pune Grand Prix.

“When you’re only having failures, you will not have pleasant feelings. But when I won the Rapid title, I felt confident, felt like taking those risks again and working towards it.”