British politician and former UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, took to X on April 3, 2026 to congratulate Budhana Sivanandan, an 11-year-old Indian-origin girl. Sivanandan, who belongs to Harrow, recently became the best female chess player in England.“Huge congratulations to Budhana Sivanandan for becoming the best chess player in England at just 11 years old.” books. “We once played with each other in Downing Street Park,” he said, adding that Sivanandan’s success did not come as a shock.
Who is Budhana Sivanandan?
Boudhana Sivanandan was born on 7 March 2015 in London, to parents who moved to the UK from Tiruchirappalli in 2007. She recently ranked 72nd in the FIDE women’s world rankings.
She is the highest-rated player in England, with a rating of 2366. In securing the position, the teenager replaces 25-year-old Lan Yao, who previously held the position.Sivanandan was just five years old when she took a liking to the game. During the pandemic, she found a chessboard that belonged to her father, which he was planning to donate to charity. “I said it was a game but she didn’t believe me, so I had to put a video on YouTube to explain it.
Her father, an IT professional, told The Times: “Then she asked me about the rules – I just knew the basics. Slowly, her interest got better and better, and she started playing better too, so we kept playing more and more chess.”At the age of seven, Sivanandan appeared at the 2022 European Schools Championships and won all 24 of her matches, taking home three golds. In 2023, she received an official title from the International Chess Federation, Women’s Candidates, with her rating exceeding 2,000.
In 2024, she set a record to become the youngest person to represent England in any sport when she was selected to participate in the Chess Olympiad in Hungary. A year later, she became the youngest player to beat a grandmaster when she defeated 60-year-old Peter Wells at the British Chess Championship in Liverpool in August 2025.She is currently a sixth-year student, and hopes to become the youngest senior professor in history. However, Sivandan follows a line of British chess prodigies to rise in the world of board games. Shreyas Royal will become the UK’s youngest ever Grand Master at 15 in 2024, and Subratit Banerjee, 12, was recently promoted to Professor.