Asian Jr C’ship: TN's Vaishali wins rapid chess title

Tamil Nadu youngster R. Vaishali won the yellow metal with a perfect score of 9 points at the Asian Junior Open and Girls Chess Championships.

R. Vaishli won the gold in the girl's Rapid chess event at Asian Junior Open and Girls Chess Championships. Indian Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram (left) finished as first runner-up in the Open category.

Tamil Nadu youngster R. Vaishali and Iranian International Master Masoud Mosadeghpur emerged victories as the Asian Junior Open and Girls Chess Championships got off to a rousing start here today.

103 players from 12 different countries are participating in this nine day long prestigious championship, which have three formats of Rapid, Standard and Blitz events.

In the girl’s Rapid event, Vaishali won the yellow metal with a perfect score of 9 points while Masoud finished first with 8 points.

Indian Grandmasters Aravindh Chithambaram and S.L. Narayanan finished as first runner-up and second runner-up respectively in open section while Uuriintuya Uurtasaikh of Mongolia won Silver and Bala Kannamma of India finished third in girl’s category.

The classical championship to decide Asian Junior Champions will start on Wednesday and the young Indian Grandmasters Aravindh Chithambaram, Karthikeyan Murali and S.L. Narayanan will spearhead the Indian challenge while R. Vaishali got the top billing in Girls section.