Yifan's first major tournament was on 31 August–12 September 2003 at the Chinese Team Chess Championship (Open) in Tianjin. She scored 3/7 with a 2246 performance rating. She won her first international tournament when she came first (9½/11; +8 =3 −0, TPR 2121) in the girl's under-10 section of the World Youth Championship in Halkidiki, Greece in October–November 2003. In November, she made her debut in the National Women's Chess Championship, held at Shanwei, Guangdong. She finished in 14th place with 3½/9 with a performance rating of 2202. 2004 On 1 January 2004, she received her first International FIDE rating of 2168, which automatically qualified her for the title of Woman FIDE Master. In April, she competed at the Chinese Team Chess Championship (Women's) in Jinan, Shandong. She scored 1½/7 (TPR 2096) having faced an average opposition rating (Rc) of 2316. In November, she finished first jointly with Yu Yangyi, Jules Moussard, and Raymond Song, but third on tiebreaks in the boy's under-ten section of the World Youth Championship, held in Heraklio, Crete (9/11; +8 =2 −1; TPR 2119). At the 11th Asian Women's Championship in Beirut, Lebanon from 4–11 December 2004, she came in eleventh with a score of 4½/9 (+4 =1 −4; TPR 2278). The event was won by Wang Yu with 6½/9. 2005 In February, she competed at the fourth Aeroflot Open (Group C) in Moscow, where she scored 2/5(TPR 2111). In April, she finished fifth with a score of 7/11 (+6 =2 −3) (tied for fourth) at the Three Arrows Cup 2005 ladies tournament in Jinan, China. In that tournament, she defeated international master Almira Skripchenko and achieved a performance rating of 2393. From 28 June–6 July at the second China-France Youth Match at Shenzhen, Guangdong, Hou Yifan scored 3/8 (+2 =2 −4, TPR 2324). The Chinese team (Zhou Jianchao, Zhao Jun, Zhao Xue and Hou) won the match 19–13. In July, at the Festival Open International des Jeunes in Saint-Lô, France, she came second out of 75 players with 6/8(TPR 2305), behind Wen Yang. In 18–29 July at the World Youth Chess Championship in Belfort, France, Hou Yifan, seeded eighth, came in fifth in the Boy's Under-12 Section with 8/11 (+5 =6, TPR 2171). In October, she qualified for the World Women's Chess Championship to be held in March 2006. Despite being rated only 2220 and ranked women's number 28 in her own country, she