REIGNING National Women’s Chess Champion, Jessica Calendar, showed her skills over the past few weeks as she stopped all her challengers to hold on to her women’s chess title for another year.

Jessica stated that the competition was by no means seamless and she had to pull out all the stops in the final round to close it out.

‘There was pressure knowing that this final round you had to win this last game; if I drew it would have gone to a playoff but basically I had to win the last game to clinch the championship’
She said she tried to maintain a relaxed composure to deliver a thumping win
‘I wasn’t too stressed …….. when you have been playing chess for some time, you know that you always have to stay calm and relax; so really all I did was relax’
She won her final match on Sunday to remain champion, ahead of nine female opponents who challenged her for the title.

Callender defeated Aditi Joshi in the final round and emerged overall winner of the Diamond Insurance National Women’s Championship at the National Racquet Centre.
The women’s only 2024 championship rounded off with Aditi Joshi scoring second place and Sasha Shariff winning the third spot.

Ten top female players confronted each other over the chessboard in the nine-round tournament over two weekends.
The National Women’s Champion lost her only match to Nellisha Johnson in Round Two.