Tatiana Kosintseva, Maia Chiburdanidze, and Xu Yuhua. Although Santiago was replaced as host city by Doha, their nominee Fierro was allowed to stay in the series. Mamedyarova was excluded from the series after the first tournament in Istanbul and replaced by Baira Kovanova due to change of host city to Nalchik. Kosintseva was unable to play in Nanjing and reserve Ju Wenjun took her place in that tournament. Tie-breaks With the objective of determining a clear, single winner to play in the championship match in the case that two or more players had equal cumulative points at the top, the following criteria (in descending order) would be utilized to decide the overall winner: The fourth result not already in the top three performances The number of actual game points scored in the four tournaments The number of first-place finishes The number of second-place finishes The number of won games Drawing of lots Prize money and Grand Prix points The prize fund was €40,000 per Grand Prix event and €60,000 for the overall Grand Prix placement. Schedule and results Events crosstables {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Istanbul, March 2009 |- ! !! !! Rating !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 6 !! 7 !! 8 !! 9 !! 10 !! 11 !! 12 !! Score !! Tie break |- | 1 || align=left| Koneru Humpy || 2621 || - || 1 || 0 || ½ || 1 || 1 || 1 || 1 || 1 || ½ || 1 || ½ || 8½ || |- | 2 || align=left| Elina Danielian || 2496 || 0 || - || ½ || 1 || 1 || ½ || 1 || 1 || 1 || ½ || ½ || 1 || 8 || 40.25 |- | 3 || align=left| Hou Yifan || 2571 || 1 || ½ || - || 0 || ½ || 1 || 1 || 1 || ½ || ½ || 1 || 1 || 8 || 39.75 |- | 4 || align=left| Zhao Xue || 2508 || ½ || 0 || 1 || - || 0 || 1 || 1 || ½ || ½ || 1 || 1 || 1 || 7½ || |- | 5 || align=left| Marie Sebag || 2529 || 0 || 0 || ½ || 1 || - || ½ || 1 || 0 || ½ || ½ || 1 ||