It's an interesting analytical(!) question whether one (or a few) women breaking the top echelon means they will have the ability to win the world championship.
Consider the Iron Man Triathlon, an extreme endurance event. A woman typically finishes in the top ten, but a woman never wins, or is close to winning. In a lesser endurance event, the Olympic marathon, a woman could never finish in the top ten. In the triathlon, I suspect the large "breakdown" rate is a factor. But there are other statistical arguments one could consider.
I don't believe this for one minute. In every sport known to man [chauvinist pig, screams Melitta my coffee maker], women's performance is 10% behind that of men. They simply don't have the muscles to compete with us! Remember those two loudmouth Williams sisters Venus and Serena? A few years ago they went on about how they could beat the pants off male top-ranked tennis players. One day at the Australian Open, a German player ranked around #100 who had just finished his match had nothing better to do and agreed to play one set against each sister. The result was something like 6-0, 6-1, and that one game was probably a gentlemanly concession. The Williams sisters never repeated their preposterous boast. The only exception in Olympic sports is equestrian events, where women have beaten men to take gold medals, but that proves my point and not yours.
It's an interesting analytical(!) question whether one (or a few) women breaking the top echelon means they will have the ability to win the world championship.
What's there to wonder about? Do you have any idea what it means to be #20 in a competitive sport played by millions all over the world? Okay, there will always be more male chess players than female chess players. But what JP has proven is that she has the ability to win tournaments against super-class grandmasters. She lacks that tiny extra bit to go all the way herself but I have no doubt that in the next generation a woman player can make it to the top four. What happens then is unpredictable but I repeat, chess is a mental sport, not an athletic sport where muscle mass is indispensable.