The top juniors in chess get all the attention! Everyone knows about Alice and Eline! But what about the rising stars? I’m talking about the players in their 20s trying to make GM and reach the top! If you only follow the players at the top of the rankings, you may have missed them. Here are the top rising stars you don’t want to miss in 2024!

Honorable Mentions

Before we begin, there were two players I couldn’t go without mentioning!

Meri Arabidze: Nearly everyone who finished the year at their peak rating was quite young. But among the older players to do so was Meri at age 29. Meri, from Georgia, is the reigning European Champion! She hasn’t been playing too many tournaments where GM norms are possible, but now at a rating of 2466, she can start thinking about whether to pursue the GM title!

Vantika Agrawal: Entering 2023, Vantika only needed one more IM norm to complete her IM title, but went ahead and made three in a row anyway! By September, she had gained +83 Elo, even more than Vaishali at any point in the year! Vantika was one of seven Indian girls who just attended a special two-week training camp with Judit Polgar, which can only be a sign of great things to come!

Now on to the top five!

No. 5: Teodora Injac

Don’t look now, but Teodora Injac has been slowly creeping up the FIDE rating list all of last year. She began this past year at 2383, having just earned the IM title at age 22 and didn’t want to stop there. She just recently hit a peak rating of 2447 on the heels of her first GM norm, and is on the fast track to become the best Serbian woman player ever!

Serbia’s Board 1: Teodora Injac. Credit: Anniken Vestby.

No. 4: Dinara Wagner

Dinara Wagner was only 2287 in mid-2022 and on no one’s radar to become a top player. That was until Germany decided to host a FIDE Women’s Grand Prix leg and Dinara won Germany’s corresponding Grand Prix wild card spot!

With a place in the whole Grand Prix secured, a then 23-year-old Dinara took that as motivation to really go for the top! And it’s worked out! This past year, Dinara made back-to-back GM norms, including the first by winning the last leg of the Grand Prix, despite being the lowest seed! Now she is also on the cusp of taking away Germany’s No. 1 rank from Elisabeth Pähtz, who has held it for around two decades, and is within striking distance to join her at GM too!

No. 3: Nurgyul Salimova

Nurgyul Salimova was chess in 2023! The most decorated women’s chess player this past year, Nurgyul will take the step and play in the Candidates in 2024. She’ll probably be the lowest-rated player by far, the only IM, and the youngest player in the field at just 20, but don’t count her out! The last Candidates held in the normal double round-robin format was won by the youngest player in the field, Aleksandra Goryachkina, who at the time was among the lower-rated in the field too. Nurgyul has already proven herself against 2500+ GMs. This will be the ultimate test to see if she can do it on the biggest stage!

No. 2: Sara Khadem

Back at the end of 2019, Sara Khadem was set to become the next woman to earn the GM title, needing just one more GM norm and around 10 Elo. But then, her former federation Iran banned her from travelling abroad after she spoke out in support of Alireza Firouzja leaving their federation. This travel ban prevented her from playing the Gibraltar Masters and the Lausanne Grand Prix leg, two of her best chances to earn her final GM norm.

Four years and one long hiatus later, it was unclear if Sara, now 26, would ever return to chess full-time or her previous GM-level form. But towards the end of this past year, she proved she was capable of it, posting back-to-back 2500+ performances in the Spanish Championship and the El Llobregat Open! Everyone is rooting for Sara to complete her title, and she is finally once again in great position to do so!

Spain’s Board 1: Sara Khadem. Credit: Patricia Claros Aguilar.

No. 1: Stavroula Tsolakidou

University or chess: the choice every chess kid must make. With a peak rating of 2438 and one GM norm at the time, Stavroula Tsolakidou was among the most accomplished female chess players in Europe to choose the university route. And like most others to go to university in Europe or America, the promising growth trajectory she had been on in chess started to slow down.

But why not do both? Stavroula Tsolakidou graduated from Saint Louis University last May, and since then she’s returned to pro chess. She’s already recouped nearly all of the 80 or so Elo she lost while at university, thanks to 2500+ performances at both the Grand Swiss and the European Team Chess Championship. She also made her second GM norm at the ETCC, and played the Move of the Year (a Qg3 sacrifice that Jennifer Shahade dubbed the “new Gold Coins move!!”) at the same event!

The chess world is a lot richer with Stavroula in it, and I have a feeling we’re going to see that on display a whole lot more in 2024!

Greece’s Board 1: Stavroula Tsolakidou. Credit: Mark Livshitz.

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There you have it: the top five women’s rising stars for 2024! Do you agree with the list? Who would make it on your top five rising stars list? Let us know in the comments!

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