Women's World Chess Championship 2015

The Women's World Chess Championship was held from 16 March to 7 April 2015 in Sochi, Russia. It was a 64-player knockout tournament. It was originally scheduled from 11 to 31 October 2014 but problems in finding a sponsor and host city eventually forced international chess organisation FIDE to announce the postponement of the Championship on 24 September 2014, scheduling it for early 2015 in Sochi. The unclear state of the tournament was highly criticised by the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP).

In the final, Ukrainian Mariya Muzychuk, seeded 8th, defeated Russian Natalia Pogonina, seeded 31st. As a result of this victory, Muzychuk was awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM), qualified for the FIDE World Cup 2015, and earned the right to defend her title in a 2016 match against the winner of the Women's FIDE Grand Prix Series 2013-14, Hou Yifan.

The players were selected through national chess championships, zonal tournaments and continental chess championships. 51 players from women's continental and zonal qualifiers: Europe 28, Asia 12, Americas 8 and Africa 3.

The qualified players were announced on 22 January 2015, subject to signing the contract.

Notably, women's world number one and defending champion Hou Yifan from China opted not to play, because of a prior commitment to a chess tournament in Hawaii. Also absent from the world top-10 were Nana Dzagnidze and Kateryna Lagno (they were replaced by two spots from E13).

The participating players were seeded by their March 2015 FIDE rating (shown after the players below).

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