At the halfway mark of the two Candidates tournaments currently underway in Cyprus, the contrast is stark between how the two have gone.
There's a runaway leader in the open section, as Javokhir Sindarow has made something of a mockery of the rest of the field, including R Praggnanandhaa.
However, in the women's section, the players at the top are bunched together, with just one point separating the top six players, including R Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh.
Here's the state of play in both tournaments after Round 7, and how the Indian players' chances stack up:
FIDE Candidates 2026
As it stands
With five wins and two draws in the first half of the tournament, Sindarov is the runaway leader, and with six points already, he's in complete control of his destiny at this tournament. Five wins has typically been enough to win the Candidates, and Sindarov already has those. Unless he has a catastrophic run of results in the second half of the tournament, it's hard to see how he gets displaced from the top.
Does Praggnanandhaa still have a chance?
A very, very slim one. First of all, it depends on Sindarov having the above-mentioned catastrophic end. Praggnanandhaa is 2.5 points behind Sindarov at the moment, with a score of 3.5 points in seven games. He has lost one, won one, and drawn five games so far. If Praggnanandhaa repeats a similar score in the second half of the tournament, Sindarov would need only 1.5 points more to put himself out of the Indian's reach.
It is going to be critical then for Praggnanandhaa to start giving himself some momentum in this tournament, starting from his first game of the second half of the tournament, with the black pieces against Anish Giri. Praggnanandhaa hasn't won any of his six games since beating Giri on the opening day of the tournament. So, even if his hopes are extremely faint, Praggnanandhaa must keep fighting until the flame is still burning. He has played out draws too easily in the last few rounds, and if he still harbours hope of making the World Championship match, he can't afford to do that. Wins must be his only currency in the second half of the tournament.
Women's Candidates 2026
As it stands
Unlike the open section, the women's section has seen a topsy-turvy fight so far. Only two points separate leader Anna Muzychuk from last-placed Tan Zhongyi, so there is everything still left to play for.
Muzychuk has had a sensational first half of the tournament, when she might not have even been here - having only been called up as a last-minute replacement following Koneru Humpy's withdrawal, citing security concerns caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
What are the chances for Divya and Vaishali?
Vaishali is just half a point behind Muzychuk, and Divya is a further half a point behind.
Considering how close the women's section has been so far, it's going to take just one run of results from someone to win the whole thing. Perhaps, something like Vaishali did at the 2024 Candidates tournament, in Toronto when she won five games in a row, albeit a bit too late to change the result. She has begun what could be a defining run, though, with two wins in a row in her last two games - against Kateryna Lagno and then Tan Zhongyi.
However, speaking to Chess.com after the win against Tan, Vaishali said she was still disappointed with the quality of her games, and needs to work towards improving that. However, not fading away after a loss, as she has tended to do sometimes in the past, is an improvement in itself. The fifth-round loss to Zhu Jiner has been put well and truly behind her, with wins in the next two roynds.
If Vaishali can manage even more two more wins in the rest of the tournament, it might be enough to win the tournament; provided she doesn't lose any of her remaining games.
Divya, meanwhile, could look back on the last game of the first half of the tournament as a defining one. She was in a winning position from move 21 but eventually couldn't convert that into a win against Lagno, as the two players played out a 135-move draw. A win in that game would've left Divya level with Vaishali in joint-second place. Instead, she's now half a point adrift, in a pack of four players with the same score. To have a realistic chance of toppling Muzychuk, Divya might need to win three of her remaining seven games, and that could be a tall order, given she only won one of her first seven games so far.
Unlike in the open section, though, there is a realistic chance that an Indian could end the women's section on top, thereby becoming the challenger to Ju Wenjun's women's World Championship title.