FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 The FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 was held in Moscow, Russia. The first six rounds were played between 27 November and 14 December 2001, and the final match started on 16 January and ended on 23 January 2002. The Ukrainian Grandmaster Ruslan Ponomariov, aged 18, won the championship and became the youngest FIDE World Champion. At the time of this championship, the World title was split. The Classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, did not participate, as well as the previous Classical Champion and world's highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov. However, all other strongest players of the
Women's World Chess Championship 1999 Women's World Chess Championship 1999 The 1999 Women's World Chess Championship was won by former champion Xie Jun, who regained her title after defeating Alisa Galliamova. Previous to the match, reigning champion Susan Polgar had been stripped of her title after much controversy. As part of the qualification process, an Interzonal tournament was held in Chişinău in 1995, featuring the best players from each FIDE zone. 52 players took part with the top seven qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. For the third time, the Interzonal was played as a 13 round Swiss system tournament. The last round game between Radu