The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Kruttika Nadig becomes WIM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 01, 2005

Sport

Sport - Chess

Kruttika Nadig becomes WIM

Special Correspondent

— File photo: Mahesh Harilal

Kruttika Nadig ... scaling new heights. — File photo: Mahesh Harilal

NEW DELHI: Kruttika Nadig became a Woman International Master when she made her final norm in spite of losing to Ukraine's Andriy Vovk in the last round of the Czech Open chess tournament at Pardubice on Saturday.

The reigning National junior girls' champion from Bangalore secured four points from nine rounds. Kruttika's earlier norms came in the Women's National `A' tournament at Kozhikode in 2003 and the World junior girls' championship at Kochi in 2004. Kruttika, whose rating has slipped to 2198 in the latest world list from her career-best 2241, has already met the rating requirement (of 2200) for her WIM title.

Meanwhile, most Indians had moderate success on the final day. Madurai's Poobesh Anand finished his remarkable unbeaten run with a draw against higher-rated International Master from Belarus, Sergei Zhigalko but S. Satyapragyan drew with Denmark's V. Nicolai Pedersen and missed a possible GM-norm.

S. Kidambi drew early with fifth seeded Latvian GM Daniel Fridman and Sandipan Chanda beat Georgian IM Konstantine Shanava to tally 6.5 points each.

Belarus' GM Andrei Kovalev defeated Ukraine's IM Mikhalo Oleksienko on the second board to win the title with 7.5 points.

The results (involving Indians): Ninth round: S. Kidambi drew with Daniel Friedman (Lat, 6.5); Sandipan Chanda bt Konstantine Shanava (Geo, 5.5); Petr Heba (Cze, 6) drew with Tejas Bakre; Poobesh Anand drew with Sergei Zhigalko (Blr, 6); M.R. Venkatesh drew with Viktor Laznicka (Cze, 5.5); V. Nicolai Pedersen (Den, 5.5) drew with S. Satyapragyan; Ante Sarik (Cro, 5.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury; D. V. Prasad drew with Mikulas Manik (Svk, 5); Jerzy Slaby (Pol, 5.5) bt Tania Sachdev; Andriy Vovk (Ukr, 5) bt Kruttika Nadig; Robert Hlavacek (Cze, 3.5) lost to Eesha Karavade; Rahul Shetty drew with Peter Jakubek (Svk, 4).

Indians' standing: 11. Chanda (6.5), 13. Kidambi (6.5); 23. Poobesh (6); 35. Bakre (6); 48. Satyapragyan (5.5); 53. Chowdhury (5.5); 67. M.R. Venkatesh (5.5); 103. D.V. Prasad (5); 157. Tania (4.5); 189. Eesha (4.5); 217. Kruttika (4); 244. Shetty (4).

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

Sport