May Top 25 Women's Rankings: Somehow Humpy returned!

So much has happened in the last few months. Grand Prix legs! A European Championship! The World Championship! A lot has changed, or has it? Let’s take a closer look in this new edition of the Top 25 rankings!

If you’re new or you haven’t seen my previous sets of rankings, these are the Top 25 women’s chess players based on both results and performance across all OTB formats in the past two years, with emphasis on classical and the most recent 12 months. (Check out here for the full methodology.)

New rankings (May 2025)

This set of rankings includes everything through April 2025. That’s mainly the World Championship match and not one, not two, but three Grand Prix legs. There were also the European Championships, including both the main one in classical as well as the rapid & blitz. The main tournament that no longer counts towards the most recent 12 months was the previous Candidates.

Here are the new rankings!

The May 2025 Top 25! Credit: @OnTheQueenside.

Huge Separation at the Top

The big number of big events, particularly the Grand Prix, has given a lot of opportunity for new players to establish themselves at the top. But instead, the established players held their ground!

Aleksandra Goryachkina, who already won a Grand Prix leg last year, won the first one this year. Then, Anna Muzychuk, who had claimed a myriad of runner-ups in recent times, finally claimed a Grand Prix title, her first one ever. The third leg in India went to Humpy Koneru, who tied for first in Anna’s leg as well. Young Zhu Jiner, who was already on the cusp of the world elite in the last rankings, didn’t win a leg, but did tie for first in the back-to-back legs won by Anna and Humpy.

With the established top players pretty much all having success in the Grand Prix, the pecking order at the top didn’t actually change that much. Goryachkina, despite winning a leg, actually dropped a spot because Humpy did so well in two legs. Similarly, Anna Muzychuk also won a leg but didn’t even move a spot because Zhu Jiner is now way ahead of her on performance level. Even though there wasn’t much change in the rankings, the top 6 (maybe 7) have opened up a wide gap between them and everyone else.

New world No. 3 Humpy Koneru just set the record for most Grand Prix titles with eight! Credit: FIDE.

Humpy’s resurgence in classical at 38 is remarkable. Her previous ranking of No. 5 wasn’t really due to classical, as it was mainly a product of her World Rapid Championship and a Candidates runner-up that while good, wasn’t so great since she was never in contention. But now with her record-breaking 8th career Grand Prix title and another shared first, Humpy has once again established herself as one of the very best players in the world in classical, an amazing recovery after two or three years of dismal classical results.

The other player who impressed the most the last few months has been Zhu Jiner. Rating-wise, she’s gotten up to 2541, surging past her previous best of 2514. Performance-wise, she’s been even better. She had 2600+ performances in both her Grand Prix legs, and the one in India in particular was good for 2666. Over the past 12 months, she’s had a 2572-level performance overall, trailing only Ju Wenjun. If these rankings were only based on performance and not also results, Zhu Jiner would already be world No. 2.

New world No. 5 tied for first place at two Grand Prix legs in a row! Credit: Abhilash.

One big question mark is Lei Tingjie. She withdrew from the whole Grand Prix series last-minute, which is how Zhu Jiner even got to play in the series at all. She hasn’t played any classical tournaments since Norway Chess last June, but she is slated to return there next month.

Newcomers

Welcome to the Top 25, Carissa Yip and Anna Ushenina!

Carissa Yip has already had some exceptional achievements this past year, most notably gold on Board 3 at the Olympiad as her team took bronze. She also had a chance at the Fischer prize with her perfect start in the US Women’s Championship, where she ended up champion. But this past month, she put forward the strongest performance maybe of her whole career, finishing in 3rd place in the Spring Chess Classic in an otherwise all-2500+ field, a fantastic 2568 performance just half a point shy of a GM norm. She may not have gotten the norm, but she does get a spot in the Top 25, slotting in at No. 17 already.

Right behind Carissa in the rankings is veteran GM Anna Ushenina at No. 18. Anna hasn’t been so active as of late, but when she’s been playing, she’s been good. In January, she produced her best results of the year at the European Rapid & Blitz, becoming European Women’s Rapid Champion and finishing runner-up in the blitz. At 39, she’s still a force to be reckoned with, and in speed chess of all disciplines.

Have to Mention

Teodora Injac had one of the most amazing performances of the year last month, winning the European Championship in spite of a first-round loss where she had mate-in-two. She won nine games in a row and was performing near 2600 before a last-round draw when the title was already clinched. Injac is up to No. 14 now. Her trajectory had been upwards for a long time, and she’s gotten it done without any invites to the Grand Prix or the other top women’s tournaments.

New world No. 14 Teodora Injac won the European Women’s Championship in dramatic fashion. Credit: Jim Laga.

Lu Miaoyi still didn’t make the Top 25 quite yet, but she was very close. Her performance in the Tata Steel Challengers was outstanding, save for the last few rounds. Through 9 rounds, she was only half a point off a GM norm level (albeit a 9-round norm in a longer RR isn’t allowed). If it was a normal-length tournament instead of a whopping 13 rounds, that would have been the signature performance to get her on the list. Even so, she has been quite solid in her other tournaments as well, particularly this past month when she performed over 2450 across 28 whole games. It’s only a matter of time before she makes the list.

Oh, and of course, Ju Wenjun is still World Champion and still world No. 1 after yet another title defense last month.

One last note is that this set of rankings only includes up to the end of April. Zhu Jiner is only No. 5 on this list, but now that she won the whole Grand Prix series this month, she's almost certainly going to move up – probably even way up – in the next rankings.

This was a big update, but the next rankings in August will be even bigger. It will include the final Grand Prix leg, the conclusion of the Grand Prix series, the privately-organized Cairns Cup and Norway Chess super-tournaments, and to top it all off, the FIDE Women’s World Cup in July that includes all the players, not just the ones who get the invites. That means more than half of the Candidates spots will be decided by the next rankings too!

That’s not even all. This month also features some of the strongest open tournaments of the year, highlighted by the Sharjah Masters and the Dubai Open.

The chess season is only heating up! We’re due for a big shift in the rankings come August! It couldn’t be busier!

For daily coverage of women's chess, follow Women's Chess Coverage on Twitter. For more posts, check out Women's Chess Coverage on Substack, where you'll be able to catch every post before it goes up on lichess, plus extra posts and related content!