US Top 100 Girls – March 2026

43 Illinois girls are in the US Top 100 for their respective age as of the March 2026 rankings.  14-year old Gaofei Wang is top-rated female youth in Illinois – ranking third in the US with a 1980 rating.

10-year old Elizabeth Xia, 1977, is the second-rated US female of her age, leading an amazing pack of six others from Illinois: Valerie Yan, Avidha Biswas, Sahasra Nali, Sri Gopal, Sadhvi Amreddy and Madhuvanti Sathish.

At age 16, Linda Pham is the third-rated Illinois girl, fronting a group of six age-mates in the US Top 100 – Shivani Manimaran, Wayra Sheridan, Megan Gansukh, Palakh Patel and Kristen Hou.  Linda is 16^th in the country with her 1810 rating.

Emily Tang, age 8, has posted a 1784 rating – one of five girls in the 1700’s, along with Valerie, Victoria Chen, Deborah Bowman and the venerable Ria Raj.  Emily is also the 4^th rated 8-year old in the US irrespective of gender.

These ratings are based on tournament games submitted mid-February, and are published towards the end of March by US Chess.