India’s Koneru Humpy defeated Indonesia’s Irine Kharisma Sukandar in the 11th Round to win FIDE World Rapid Championship being held in Wall Street, New York on Sunday.

Humpy finished on joint-top in the 2023 Samarkand Rapid Championship before losing to eventual winner Anastasia Bodnaruk in tiebreaks.

This is Humpy’s second World Rapid title after claiming the top spot in 2019 in Moscow.

Humpy missed out on Budapest Olympiad where India won historic double gold due to personal reasons but recovered well to cap off 2024 with Rapid title.

Going into the final round of the event, six players — Ju Wenjhun, Kateryna Lagno, Harika Dronavalli, Afruza Khamdamova, Tan Zhongyi and Irene — apart from Humpy were leading the tournament with 7.5 points in 10 rounds.

"I'm very excited and I feel thrilled. In fact, I expected it to be a very tough day, like some tie-break. But when I finished the game, I only got to know when the arbitrator told me, and it was a tense moment for me,” said Humpy, who began with black pieces, after her victory. 

"So, this is quite unexpected because the whole year I have been struggling a lot and had very bad tournaments where I just ended up in last place. So, this came as a surprise,” she added.