The

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's ...

2001 took place from November 25 to December 14, 2001, in Moscow, Russia. It was won by

Zhu Chen Zhu Chen (, ; born March 13, 1976) is a Chinese and Qatari chess grandmaster. In 1999, she became China's second women's world chess champion after Xie Jun, and China's 13th Grandmaster. In 2006, she obtained Qatari citizenship and since the ...

, who beat

Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk (; born 23 April 1984) is a Russian and Swiss chess grandmaster who was the Women's World Chess Champion from 2008 to 2010 and Women's World Rapid Chess Champion in 2021. She was European women's champion ...

in the final by 5 to 3. The final was tied 2–2 after the classical games and decided in the rapid tie-breaks. For the second time, the championship took the form of a 64-player

knock-out tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

Participants

The qualified players were seeded by their

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system wa ...

s (October 2001).Top 50 Women October 2001
FIDE Notable top players not taking part were

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the Strong (chess), strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years ...

(ranked the no. 1 woman in the world),

Xie Jun Xie Jun (born October 30, 1970) is a Chinese chess grandmaster and is the first Asian woman to become a chess grandmaster. She had two separate reigns as Women's World Chess Champion, from 1991 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2001. Xie is one ...

(ranked 2nd), Wang Lei (4th),

Pia Cramling Pia Ann Rosa-Della Cramling (born 23 April 1963) is a Swedish chess grandmaster. Since the early 1980s, she has been one of the strongest female players in the world as well as the highest-rated woman in the FIDE World Rankings on three occasio ...

(6th),

Koneru Humpy Koneru Humpy (born 31 March 1987) is an Indian chess grandmaster. Humpy is a runner-up of the Women's World Chess Championship and the reigning two-time Women's World Rapid Chess Champion. In 2002, she became the youngest female player--and ...

(13th),

Qin Kanying Qin Kanying (; born 2 February 1974) is a Chinese chess player who holds the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster. She is a former Women's World Chess Championship runner-up and five-time Chinese women's champion. Career Qin Kanying won the Women's C ...

(15th), Sofia Polgar (16th), and

Viktorija Čmilytė Viktorija may refer to: * Viktorija (given name), including a list of people with this name * Viktorija (singer), Serbian singer See also * Viktoriya * Viktoria (disambiguation) * Victoria (disambiguation) * Viktor (disambiguation) * Victor ...

(20th). Polgár, ranked 1st female and 19th overall in the world, chose instead to participate in the concurrent open event. Reigning champion Xie Jun had put her active career on hold at the time and decided not to defend her title.

Qualification paths

*WC: semifinalists of Women's World Chess Championship 2000 (2) *J: World Junior Champion 2000 *R: Rating (7) *E:

European Individual Chess Championship The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's) ...

(29) *AM:

American Continental Chess Championship The Pan American Chess Championship, also American Continental Championship is an individual chess tournament organized since 1945. It is often a qualifier for the FIDE World Cup. First Pan American championships (1945 and 1954) The first Pan ...

2001 *AS:

Asian Chess Championship The Asian Chess Championship is a chess tournament open to all players from Asian chess federations (FIDE zones from 3.1 to 3.8). It is held with the Swiss system and consists of two divisions, Open and Women's, the latter of which is reserved to ...

(6) *AF:

African Chess Championship The first African Chess Championship was played in 1998. Ibrahim Hasan Labib and Mohamed Tissir both shared first place with 7/10, but the former took the title. The 2007 championship was the FIDE Zone 4 qualifier for the Chess World Cup 2007 ...

2001 (3) * Z2.1 (3), Z2.2, Z2.3, Z2.4, Z2.5, Z3.1a, Z3.1b, Z3.2a, Z3.2b, Z3.3, Z3.4: Zonal tournaments *PN:

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

President nominee (2)

Results

Final Match

Bracket

References

External links

* {{Women's World Chess Championships 2001 in chess Women's World Chess Championships Chess Championship Chess in Russia 2001 in Russian sport 2001 in Moscow 2001 in women's sport Women's sport in Moscow