Xu Yuhua biography

 Xu Yuhua biography

 Xu Yuhua, (born Oct. 29, 1976, Jinhua, Zhejiang province, China), Chinese chess participant who was girls’s world champion (2006–08).

In 1998 Xu received the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) Asian Women’s Chess Championship, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which earned her the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title. Xu received the primary biennial FIDE Women’s World Cup, held in Shenyang, China, in 2000, by defeating Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine by a rating of 1 win and 1 draw within the two-game ultimate match. In the 2002 FIDE Women’s World Cup, held in Hyderabad, India, Xu defeated Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria, who would turn out to be the ladies’s world champion in 2004, within the two-game ultimate match by a rating of 1 win and 1 draw. Xu was a member of the Chinese girls’s groups that received the gold medal on the FIDE Chess Olympiads in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

Xu started competing within the FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship “knockout” tournaments in 2000, successful by to the third spherical in 2000 in New Delhi, India, the semifinals in 2001 in Moscow, and the quarterfinals in 2004 in Elista, Russia. The 2006 FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship, held in Ekaterinburg, Russia, included two former champions (Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia and Zhu Chen of China), the reigning champion (Stefanova), and a future champion (Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia). In the ultimate four-game match, Xu defeated Alisa Galliamova of Russia by a rating of two wins, 1 draw, and 0 losses. With her victory, Xu earned the (males’s) International Grandmaster (GM) title. She was eradicated within the second spherical of the 2008 FIDE Women’s World Championship, held in Nalchik, Russia, ending her reign.

Xu, who was 4 months pregnant on the time of the 2006 world championship, was honoured as one of many torchbearers for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.