Ju Wenjun (L) of China faces her challenger Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia during the Women's World Chess Championship in Shanghai, east China, January 12, 2020.
China's chess grand-master Ju Wenjun defended her "Chess Queen" title after defeating Aleksandra Goryachkina, a 21-year-old Russian challenger, at the 2020 Women's World Chess Championship on Friday.
This year, the event between title defender Ju and her challenger Goryachkina, the winner of the 2019 Candidates Tournament, was held in two cities: Round one to six between January 3-13 in Shanghai, China, and round seven till the final from January 14 to 26 in Vladivostok, Russia.
After 12 rounds of grueling matches, they concluded the championship with a score of 2.5-1.5 in a tie-break final, a rapid four-set playoff, with results of 1, 0.5, or 0 meaning a win, draw, or loss respectively in the chess scoring system.
Born in Shanghai, the 28-year-old Chinese has won the women's world chess championship for the third consecutive year since 2018 and became the sixth Chinese women to champion the event after legends Xie Jun, Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, Hou Yifan and Tan Zhongyi.
Ju, who was a challenger at that time, took the crown for the first time after defeating then "Queen" title holder Tan at the chess event in May, 2018.
She defended her title in the event in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia in November, 2018.
CGTN infographic by Yin Yating and Qu Bo
A brief history of the Women's World Chess Championship
The chess event, established by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1927, is a tournament held every two years to determine the world's best female chess player.
Starting from an all-to-all event, the event became a 64-player knockout tournament since 2001 and added a one-on-one duel between the champion and her challenger in 2010.
And the challenger was determined by the Candidates Tournament, an eight-player double robin tournament which was first introduced in 1952 to replace the all-to-all schedule and reused in 2019.