Antoaneta Stefanova

Antoaneta Stefanova
Full name	Antoaneta Stefanova (Антоанета Стефанова)
Country	Bulgaria
Born	April 19, 1979 (1979-04-19) Sofia, Bulgaria
Title	Grandmaster
Women's World Champion	2004-2006
FIDE rating	2531 (March 2012) (No. 10 woman in the January 2012 FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating	2560 (January 2003, May 2010, July 2010)

Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgarian: Антоанета Стефанова) (born April 19, 1979) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster, and a former Women's World Chess Champion. She became the twelfth holder of that title in 2004 in a 64-player knockout tournament held in Elista, Kalmykia under the auspices of FIDE.

Stefanova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her passion for chess was first inspired when she was just four years old, receiving her first lessons from her father, Andon Stefanov, a designing artist.

• At the age of seven, Stefanova became a Sofia champion.
• In 1989, Stefanova swept the world chess crown for kids in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and later the same year triumphed in the under-14 Czech championship.
• Since 1994, Stefanova has successively competed in grandmaster championships, taking even seventh among male nationals in 1993.
• In 1997 Stefanova's FIDE rating broke into the top ten of women worldwide. Also she earned the title of Grandmaster in June 2003, a title held by only ten other women.
• She has played for Bulgaria in five Chess Olympiads so far, starting in Manila, the Philippines, in 1992 when she was just 13.
• In 2000, her coach promoted her to the Bulgarian men's team for the Istanbul Olympiad.

External links

• Antoaneta Stefanova player profile at ChessGames.com
• Interview With GM Antoaneta Stefanova

Preceded by Zhu Chen

Women's World Chess Champion 2004–2006

Succeeded by Xu Yuhua