Kutwal sole leader

MUMBAI, July 14: Baramati's Shashikant Kutwal became the sole leader after five round of the Maharashtra State Selection Chess Tournamentwh...

MUMBAI, July 14: Baramati8217;s Shashikant Kutwal became the sole leader after five round of the Maharashtra State Selection Chess Tournamentwhen when he defeated Prakash Joshi at the Andheri Sports Complex here today.

Kutwal, who has five points, defeated overnight joint leader, Joshi of Nagpur. Playing on the top board, Kutwal opted for the Yugoslav attack as Joshi adopted the Sicilian Dragon. Both deviated from the theory by castling on the opposite sides. They then attacked the Kings by pushing the pawns. Kutwal defended his position well and attacked Joshi8217;s King forcefully and the latter resigned after 31 moves.

In two long-drawn battles taking upto 6 hours, Ketan Khaire and defending champion Sharath Gokul emerged winners. Khaire defeated Vinayak Ghate when the latter blundered his queen in a winning position and resigned on the 74th move.

In a rook and pawn versus rook ending, Gokul of Mumbai, defeated Vikrant Chole after 75 moves. In the second spot with 4.5 points are Khaire, Gokul, Pallavi Shah and Vivek Sthalekar.

Fifth round results: Sashikant Kutwal 5 bt Pankaj Joshi 4, Ketan Khaire 4.5 bt Vinayak Ghate 3.5, Sharath Gokul 4.5 bt Vikrant Chole 3.5, Rajesh Sakpal 3.5 lost to Pallavi Shah 4.5, Vivek Sthalekar 4.5 bt D Ravishankar 3.5, R Kashelkar 4 bt Satchidananda Soman 3, S Surendran 4 bt Sanjeev Kumar 3, Deepak Andurkar 4 bt Ketan Boricha 3, Amardeep Bartakke 4 bt DG Bhandarkar 3, Prathmesh Mokal 4 bt Shailesh Gadre 3, Umesh Panbude 4 bt S Banerjee 3, Rashmin Pulekar 4 bt A Chatterjee 3, P Date 4 bt H Mandhare 2.5.

Kedar, Chandorkar in final

Anupama Kedar Bank of India and Sangeeta Chandorkar Reserve Bank will contest in the women8217;s final in the Kshatriya Union Club Open Carrom tournament. Anupama defeated Vijayalakshmi Rangarajan Reserve Bank 25-6, 25-5 while Chandorkar won 25-1, 25-18 over Malati Kelkar Income-Tax.Results: Sub-junior boys singles semi-finals: Rupesh Pailkar bt Rakesh Gohil 25-14, 25-9; Suraj Kajrolkar bt Aniket Kamble 25-21, 25-0.

Matches disrupted

The opening day8217;s matches of the the Bombay Suburban District Table Tennis Championships were not held as many players could no report to the venue, according to a press release from the organisers, Namrata Sports Association.