Marić Alisa (10.01.1970)

Serbian Woman Grandmaster (1988) and International Master born in the USA. Ph.D. in Economics at Belgrade University, she is a university professor in Marketing and between 2012 and 2013, she was Minister of Youth and Sports in the Government of Serbia.
Vice World U20 champion in 1985. Several times Women’s Yugoslav Champion. Among the top five women in the 1990s.
Best Serbian woman player for two decades, she was National Master at 12 and first time Women’s national champion at 16.

Best results: winner of the Women’s Interzonal of Borzhomi in 1990, she qualified for the Candidate finals but lost to Xie Jun 4,5-2,5. Finished fourth in the Candidates’ Tournament at Jakarta in 1993 and third in the 1990 Interzonal of Kuala Lumpur.

A participated in 10 Women Olympiads since 1986, mostly first board. She won the gold for the best individual performance on board one at the Olympiad of 1998 and a team bronze medal in 1988.

Alisa is the twin sister of Woman Grandmaster Mirjana Maric-Stamenkovic.

Peak rating: 2489 in 1999.

My victory at the Candidates Tournament in Georgia, when I shared first place with Xie Jun, marked the end of the Soviet domination among women’s chess players and I consider it to be a very important achievement. Final challenger match in Belgrade and Beijing against Xie Jun went like some kind of dream. Only later I became aware how close I was to the World Championship match.