The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Anand in semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 28, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anand in semifinals

DORTMUND, JULY 27. Viswanathan Anand and Peter Svidler booked their berths from group `A' in the semifinals of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting here on Monday.

Anand brushed aside Russia's Sergei Rublevsky in 35 moves of Sicilian Paulsen to remain on top of the pack with 3.5 points from five rounds. Svidler put it across German Arkadij Naiditsch to collect three points, a point clear of Rublevsky, with one round-robin match to go.

However, in group `B', both matches were drawn for the fifth straight day.

Upset win

At Biel (Switzerland), K. Sasikiran scored one of his biggest career victories on Monday when he outplayed former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov to remain in the lead with Alexander Morozevich after seven rounds of Biel International Grandmaster tournament.

Sasikiran's triumph in 33 moves of Anti-Meran Gambit followed his Sunday's victory over Swiss Yannick Pelletier. In the other sixth round matches, Morozevich drew with Luke Mcshane and Ponomariov defeated Etienne Barcot.

In the Master's event, P. Magesh Chandran defeated Buss Ralph to reach 4.5 points in the seventh round.

In the other matches, P. Konguvel (3) lost to Avni Ermeni, R. R. Vasudevan (3.5) drew with GM Ciric Dragoljub and Parimarjan Negi (4) outplayed Jurg Ditzler.

Kunte held

Meanwhile in the Czech Open in Pardubice, former British champion Abhijit Kunte (2.5) was held by Leonid Gerzhoy in the fourth round.

Most of the other Indians too were involved in drawn matches. S. Kidambi (2.5) beat Dmitry Melnikov, Neelotpal Das (2) drew with Yosef Kagan, S. Meenakshi (2) drew with Petr Simek, Tejas Bakre (1.5) drew with Jan Sikora, R. B. Ramesh (1.5) drew with Olga Kuzmina, Eesha Karavade (1.5) drew with Yuri Mikhailov, Dronavalli Harika (2) beat Manfred Eiber, Nisha Mohota (1) drew with Diaz Julio Gonzalez and Tania Sachdev (1) drew with Martin Beil.

The results:

At Dortmund: Group `A': Fifth round: V. Anand (3.5) beat Sergie Rublevsky (Rus, 2); Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger, 1.5) lost to Peter Svidler (Rus, 3); Group `B': Fifth round: Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 2.5) drew with Viorel Bologan (Mol, 2.5); Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 2.5) drew with Peter Leko (Hun, 2.5).

At Biel: Seventh round: K. Sasikiran (5) bt Ruslan Ponomariov (Rus, 3.5); Yannick Pelletier (Sui, 3) drew with Luke McShane (Eng, 2); Etienne Bacrot (Fra) lost to Alexander Morozevich (Rus, 5).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport