Indians maintain stranglehold at halfway stage

In the under-10 girls section, J Mohana Priya and P Lakshmi Sahithi overcame compatriots Kiruba Arasu and Rucha Pujari respectively on the top two boards to surge into lead with three points each. In the under-12 section, I Ramya Krishna and Lakshmi Praneetha shared the lead with an unbeaten run collecting three points each. Both the leaders found mating attacks while beating Dhyani B Dave and Pon N Krithika respectively.

Ramya was particularly impressive as she won an exchange in a tactical squirmish in a Reti opening and conducted the attack smoothly. Dhyani had to watch the Queenside operation passively and resign to her fate after 36 moves.

In the under-14 girls section, Prateeka G fell to Luong Nhate Linh of Vietnam in 27 moves of Sicilian on the top board and Rajasurya stopped Pallavi Maiya’s unbeaten run with a 24-move win, also in Sicilian. Linh and Rajasurya shot into the lead with three points each.

G Rohit and Toufighi set up a fourth round clash on Tuesday in the under-14 boys section. But the game that could decide the title would be in the fifth round as the winner of this clash will meet favourite and top seed Nguyen Ngoc Truong. At the moment, Truong is in the driving seat and looks impregnable in defence. The Vietnamese needed only 25 moves to outwit Abhijeet Gupta in English Opening after winning two pawns in middle game exchanges and creating passed pawns. Rohit beat Sai Srinivas in 52 moves of Sicilian on the second board.

In under-12 and under-10 boys, Indians emerged sole leaders. Twentieth seed Prachura PP upset second seed Karthikeyan S in 70 moves of English Opening to reach three points in under-12 section while second seed Srinath S used the Sicilian to defeat Dhaval Sanjay in 45 moves to get to the top even as top seed Parimarjan Negi conceded a draw by perpetual checks to Koohestani Mohd Azad of Iran on the top board in 47 moves of Sicilian.