Koneru Humpy won three gold medals at the World Youth Chess Championship: in 1997 (under-10 girls' division), 1998 (under-12 girls) and 2000 (under-14 girls). In 1999, at the Asian Youth Chess Championship, held in Ahmedabad, she won the under-12 section, competing with the boys.[5] In 2001 Koneru won the World Junior Girls Championship. In the following year's edition, she tied for first place with Zhao Xue, but placed second on tiebreak.[6] Koneru competed with the boys in the 2004 World Junior Championship, which was won by Pentala Harikrishna, and tied for fifth place, finishing tenth on countback with a score of 8.5/13 points.

Koneru won the British Women's Championship in 2000 and in 2002. In 2003, she won the 10th Asian Women's Individual Championship and the Indian Women's Championship.[8][9] In 2005, she won the North Urals Cup, a round-robin tournament held in Krasnoturyinsk, Russia featuring ten of the strongest female players in the world at the time.[10] She participated in the Women's World Chess Championship for the first time in 2004 and since then, she has competed in every edition of the event held with the knockout format. Koneru reached the semifinals in 2004, 2008 and 2010.

In 2009, she tied for 1st–4th with Alexander Areshchenko, Magesh Panchanathan and Evgenij Miroshnichenko in the Mumbai Mayor Cup.[11] In 2009, Koneru accused the All India Chess Federation of preventing her from participating in the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin.[12][13] Her father Koneru Ashok, who was coaching her, was not allowed to travel with her for tournaments. The controversy has not died down. Koneru took part in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011 and finished in overall second position, in turn qualifying as challenger for Women's World Chess Championship 2011.[14][15] Hou Yifan won the match, winning three games and drawing five. Koneru finished runner-up in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix series also in the 2011–12, 2013–14 and 2015–16 editions. She won the individual bronze at the Women's World Team Chess Championship 2015 held in Chengdu, China. Team India finished fourth in the competition – a point behind China, which won the bronze medal.