NEW DELHI: Little-known R. Preethi enjoyed the biggest moment of her blossoming career by scoring an impressive win over defending champion Hoang Thi Bao Tram and ensured an Indian medal-sweep in the girls' section of the Asian junior chess championships at the Bapu Samaj Sewa Kendra here on Monday.

When the dust settled after an action-filled eighth and penultimate round, Mary Ann Gomes found herself needing just a draw with white pieces against fellow-leader P. Lakshmi Sahiti to claim the gold. Mary, whose is ahead of Lakshmi on the basis of tie-break score, put out Kruttika Nadig in a rook-pawn ending in 74 moves. Lakshmi accounted for overnight leader Kiran Monisha Mohanty to join Mary at 6.5 points.

In the open section, Grandmaster Ngyuen Ngoc Truong Son (6.5 points) looked good to take the gold ahead of the Indian challengers.

The results (eighth round, Indians unless stated): Open: Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Vie, 6.5) bt S.P. Sethuraman (5.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (5) lost to M. Shyam Sundar (6.5); Deep Sengupta (5.5) drew with B. Adhiban (5.5); Rahul Sangma (5) lost to G.N. Gopal (6); Ashwin Jayaram (6) bt Dzhurabek Khamrakulov (Uzb, 5); Abhijeet Gupta (5.5) bt D. Sai Srinivas (4.5); G. Rohit (5.5) bt Swapnil Dhopade (4.5); R. Ashwath (4.5) lost to S. Arun Prasad (5); Swayams Mishra (5) bt S. Nitin (4); Akshat Khamparia (4) lost to Venkat Sundaram (5); Debashish Das (5) bt Shahin Sadeh

(Iri, 4); S. Narayan (4.5) bt T. Purushothaman (3.5); Anwesh Upadhayay (4.5) bt S. Ganesh Babu (3.5).

Girls: Kiran Monisha Mohanty (6) lost to P. Lakshmi Sahiti (6.5); Kruttika Nadig (5) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (6.5); R. Preethi (6) bt Hoang Thi Bao Tram (5); Saheli Nath (4.5) lost to Padmini Rout (5); Syed Nabeela Farheen (4) lost to Amrutha Mokal (5.5); Shohreh Bayat (Iri, 5) bt Soumya Swaminathan (4); K. Tejaswi (5) bt Baisaskhi Das (4); P. Priya (4.5) bt Dhara Gupta (3.5); M. Rajadarshini (4.5) bt Nadiya Tashimova (Kaz, 3.5); Ketaki Kulkarni (4.5) drew with Preetika Tayal (3.5).

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