A 10-year-old girl from Harrow, north-west London, has made chess history.
Bodhana Sivanandan has become the youngest person ever to earn the Woman International Master title. Earlier this month, she also became the youngest female player to beat a grandmaster, winning against 60-year-old Peter Wells at the 2025 British Chess Championship in Liverpool.
Bodhana’s victory breaks the previous record set in 2019 by American Carissa Yip, who was 10 years and 11 months old at the time. Grandmaster is the highest rank in chess, held for life, while Bodhana’s new title is the second-highest ranking given exclusively to women.
This isn’t her first remarkable achievement. In 2024, she was believed to have become the youngest person ever to represent England in any sport, when she joined the England Women’s Chess Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.
Bodhana first discovered chess during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. A friend of her father gave the family a bag of books and toys, which included a chessboard. She was curious about the pieces and, instead of using them as toys, learned how to play.
