Sharjah Masters: Gukesh, seven other Indians among the leaders

D. Gukesh and seven other Indians made a winning start to their campaigns in the USD 60,000 Sharjah Masters chess tournament on Saturday.

D. Gukesh (in picture) beat Vahap Sanal of Turkey. - RAKESH RAO (FILE)

D. Gukesh and seven other Indians made a winning start to their campaigns in the USD 60,000 Sharjah Masters chess tournament on Saturday.

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In the 80-player field, 27 players won their first-round matches but second seeded Armenian Gabriel Sargissian lost to Spain’s Daniil Yuffa while top seed Vladimir Fedoseev, fourth seed Arjun Erigaisi and seventh seed S. L. Narayanan were held to draws.

Raunak Sadhwani, B. Adhiban, S. P. Sethuraman, Aryan Chopra, Abhimanyu Puranik, Aravindh Chithambaram and Abhijeet Gupta won their opening games. Nihal Sarin, seeded 14, was also among those who dropped half a point.

• FIRST ROUND
• Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo) drew with Arjun Erigaisi;
• S. L. Narayanan drew with Luca Moroni Jr (Ita);
• D. Gukesh bt Vahap Sanal (Tur);
• Shamsiddin Vokhidov (Uzb) drew with Nihal Sarin;
• Shant Sarsyan (Arm) bt Sankalp Gupta;
• Aditya Mittal drew with Samvel Ter-Sahakyan (Arm);
• Raunak Sadhwani bt Oliver Dimakiling (Phi);
• Adbelrahman Hesham (Egy) lost to B. Adhiban;
• Surya Shekhar Ganguly drew with Ilyas Msellek (Mar);
• Mert Erdogdu (Tur) lost to S. P. Sethuraman;
• Aryan Chopra bt Nataliya Buksa (Ukr);
• Abhimanyu Puranik bt Teodora Injac (Srb);
• Aravindh Chithambaram bt Husain Aziz (Qat);
• Lothar Vogt (Ger) lost to Abhijeet Gupta.