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Williams’s broadcast partner Jovanka Houska, a chess international master, luckily had a clue about what was actually happening.

“She must be upset with something,” Houska said. “I was discussing with her at dinnertime and she thought the pairings were very unfair towards her. She was a bit upset that she was playing seven women (in the 10-round mixed-sex tournament).”

Speaking afterwards, Yifan said she had been angry at the pairings throughout the event because she had drawn seven women players over 10 rounds.

“It makes me really, really upset,” she said. “Not just for me, but for the other women players.

“We are chess players and of course when we are playing in a tournament we

want to show our best performance and create interesting games for the chess fans, for the people who love chess.”

The Gibraltar tournament is an open event, meaning that entry is open to players of both sexes.

Yifan is the top-ranked female player by some distance on the World Chess Federation’s list, but 105th in the combined list.

She turned down the chance to defend her women’s world championship title in Iran this month to play in mixed events, where at the top level the competition is generally stronger.

The women’s game is already in turmoil after it emerged several other top players are boycotting it over the Islamic nation’s strict dress code, which requires women to wear the hijab at all times.

Yifan’s five-move defeat against Indian grandmaster Babu Lalith, a male player she outranks, shocked onlookers.

On Twitter, British grandmaster Nigel Short, who was also playing at Gibraltar, said: “Hou Yifan’s last-round game will go down in the annals of chess history.”

Commentator Anna Rudolf said: “I’m totally puzzled by what’s going on. Hou Yifan is one of the kindest and most polite chess players on earth.”

Grandmaster Stuart Conquest, the director of Gibraltar Chess, called the Yifan game “the biggest crisis” in the 15 years of the tournament.