Isabelle Yixuan Ning

Isabelle Yixuan Ning learned chess from her parents at six after finding a board at home. Four months later she won her age group in a regional tournament. In January 2020, aged ten years and five months, she became New Zealand's youngest junior champion. She represented the women's national team at the 2022 and 2024 Olympiads. Her first New Zealand women's championship came in 2023 with 6½/7. At the 2025 Women's World Cup she drew her opening game against Valentina Gunina before losing the match. That September she became the first woman to win the South Island championship outright in its seventy-year history. She added the Oceania girls' under-twenty title in December. FIDE records her Woman International Master title in 2026.