Medal hopes over for Grover

Grandmaster-elect Sahaj Grover fought hard but had to settle for a draw with Yaroslav Zherebukh of Ukraine to bow out of medal contention in the World Junior Chess Championship after the 12th and penultimate round that concluded.

Grandmaster-elect Sahaj Grover fought hard but had to settle for a draw with Yaroslav Zherebukh of Ukraine to bow out of medal contention in the World Junior Chess Championship after the 12th and penultimate round that concluded. A bronze medallist last time,16-year-old Delhi boy Sahaj gave a good shot in the opening but fell wayward as the game progressed and in the end was lucky to escape with a half point that signalled the end of his medal aspirations.

It was Dutch defence and Grover sprang a surprise early to catch Zherebukh off-guard and the Ukrainian spent nearly 35 minutes on his six moves which guaranteed an opening success to the Indian. Zherebukh,however,ran too short of time to make use of his advantage and slipped towards the end of first time control and the game was soon drawn. Grover remains the best performing Indian with eight points.

At the top of the table,Richard Rapport of Hungary and Alexander Ipatov of Turkey remained in joint lead on 9.5 points following draws in contrasting fashion. With two leaders on 9.5 points,Ding Liren of China and Ter-Sahakyan remain within striking distance of the title a half point behind.

Among Indians in the open section,Debashish Das succumbed to his third straight loss after making his maiden Grandmaster norm. Das went down to Salem A R Saleh of UAE. Zhou Yang-Fan of Australia held P Shyam Nikil to a draw while Diptayan Ghosh drew with GM Tal Baron of Israel. M Shyam Sundar was lone winner among Indian boys at the expense of local hopeful Aggelis Nikolaos but Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus defeated Aravindh Chithambaram. Anwesh Upadhyaya also ended on the losing side against Benjamin Arvola of Norway while Nishant Malhotra did well to hold Panagiotis Koutoukidis of Greece to a draw.

It turned out to be a decent outing for Indian girls as Bhakti Kulkarni played out a draw with Andrea Paula Rodriguez Rueda of Columbia while Ivana Maria Furtado and Pon N Krithika won against Ana Ivekovic of Croatia and beat Elise Forsa of Norway.

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