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Tania suffers a shock defeat

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Top seed Tania Sachdev suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Bangladeshi National champion Sultana Sharmin Shirin in the sixth round of the women’s section in the Asian zonal chess championship at the AAI Club here on Friday.

International Master Tania was cruising towards victory when she blundered on the 36th move. She resigned immediately. The unexpected result threw the championship wide open in the women’s event.

Tania wound up her campaign with four points from six rounds. The rest of the field would vie for the title and the lone qualification spot for the World Cup.

Nisha Mohota beat Monalisa Khaboo of Nepal to take her tally to four points, and will take on National champion Kruttika Nadig in the final round on Saturday. Sultana Sharmin Shirin has 3.5 points and enjoys the advantage of being paired in the last round with Sachini Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka who has only one point in her account.

Neelotpal beaten

In the men’s section, International Master K. Ratnakaran sprung a surprise on overnight sole leader Grandmaster Neelotpal Das in the eighth round.

While Ratnakaran took his score to 5.5 points, Grandmaster Praveen Thipsay and International Master Sriram Jha jumped back into the lead with 6.5 points each.

The results: Men (eighth round): Amir Karim (Pak, 2) lost to Reefat Bin-Sattar (Ban, 3); Sriram Jha (6.5) bt H.L.M. Hapuarachchi (Sri, 1); Ahmed Ashraf (Mdv, 1) lost to Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 5.5); Surbir Lama (Nep, 2.5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (6); K. Rathnakaran (5.5) bt Neelotpal Das (6); Kesav Mall (Bhu, 0) lost to Praveen Thipsay (6.5); Tunveer Gillani (Pak, 2.5) bye.

Women (sixth round): Nisha Mohota (4) bt Monalisa Khamboo (Nep, 0); Swathi Ghate (2) bt Sachini Ranasinghe (Sri, 1); Sultana Sharmin Shirin (Ban, 3.5) bt Tania Sachdev (4); Kruttika Nadig (3.5) bye.

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