Koneru won three gold medals at the
World Youth Chess Championship: in 1997 (under-10 girls' division), 1998 (under-12 girls) and 2000 (under-14 girls). In 1999, at the Asian Youth Chess Championship, held in
Ahmedabad, she won the under-12 section, competing with the boys. In 2001, Humpy won the
World Junior Girls Championship. In the following year's edition, she tied for first place with
Zhao Xue, but placed second on tiebreak. She became the
eighth woman to earn the Grandmaster title in 2002, and the first Indian female player and the youngest female player to do so. She earned her first GM norm at the Hotel Lipa International in June 2001. Her second GM norm was at the 3rd Saturday GM tournament, which she won, in October 2001. She made her final GM norm in the Elekes Memorial, also tying for first place. Humpy competed with the boys in the 2004 World Junior Championship, which was won by
Pentala Harikrishna and tied for fifth place, finishing tenth on countback with a score of 8.5/13 points. Koneru won the
British Women's Championship in 2000 and in 2002. In 2003, she won the 10th
Asian Women's Individual Championship and the
Indian Women's Championship. In 2005, she won the North Urals Cup, a
round-robin tournament held in
Krasnoturyinsk, Russia featuring ten of the strongest female players in the world at the time. She participated in the
Women's World Chess Championship for the first time in
2004 and since then, she has competed in every edition of the event held with the
knockout format. Humpy reached the semifinals in 2004,
2008 and
2010. In 2009, she tied for 1st–4th with
Alexander Areshchenko,
Magesh Panchanathan and
Evgenij Miroshnichenko in the
Mumbai Mayor Cup. In 2009, Koneru accused the
All India Chess Federation of preventing her from participating in the
37th Chess Olympiad in
Turin. Her father Koneru Ashok, who was coaching her, was not allowed to travel with her for tournaments. Koneru took part in the
FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011 and finished in overall second position, in turn qualifying as challenger for
Women's World Chess Championship 2011. Hou Yifan won the match, winning three games and drawing five. She finished runner-up in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix series also in the
2011–12,
2013–14,
2015–16 and
2019–21 editions. She won the individual bronze at the Women's
World Team Chess Championship 2015 held in
Chengdu, China. Team India finished fourth in the competition – a point behind China, which won the bronze medal. In December 2019, Koneru won the
Women's World Rapid Chess Championship 2019 after coming back from a two-year maternity sabbatical. In 2020, she won the BBC Indian Sportswoman of the year award, following a public vote. She also competed at the 2022 Chess Olympiad as part of the women's India team, which achieved a bronze medal. In 2023, she was the runner up in the World Rapid championships. In December 2024, Koneru won the
Women's World Rapid Chess Championship 2024 became the
Women's World Rapid Chess Champion for the second time in her career. In July 2025, she defeated
Lei Tingjie by 5-3 in the semifinals of the
2025 FIDE Women's World Cup to set up an All-Indian summit clash with 19 year old compatriot
Divya Deshmukh. Her victory came after two draws in the classical format and a come from behind victory in the tiebreaks by winning three consecutive games after being down 2-3. In the final, she lost during tiebreaks, drawing the first game and losing the second, finishing in second place. Through winning her semifinal she automatically qualified to the
Women's Candidates Tournament 2026. On March 22, 2026, she withdrew from the
Women's Candidates Tournament, citing safety concerns due to the
2026 Iran war, which saw
Iranian drone strikes on Cyprus. She was replaced by
Anna Muzychuk, who was the highest-finishing player in the
FIDE Women's Events 2024-25 who had not already qualified. ==World Titles==