MOSCOW, Dec 14: China’s Zhu Chen was crowned FIDE women’s world chess champion Friday when she beat Russia’s Alexandra Kosteniuk 3-1 in a four-game rapid-play tie-break series in the final in Moscow.

She won the fourth game with the black pieces, having earlier won the first and third games playing white but lost the second game in which she played black.

The regular-play games in their four-game final series ended at level pegging 2-2 Thursday after Kosteniuk fought back to equalise by winning the last game.

Zhu is the second Chinese chess player to win the women’s world title, following Xie Jun who held the title from 1991 to 1996.

The men’s FIDE (World Chess Federation) world championship final is to be disputed next month by two Ukrainians, Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov.—AFP