RTU Open chess: Narayanan in joint lead

Sixth seed S.L. Narayanan stayed in the title-hunt beating Serbia’s Luka Budisavljevic and sharing the lead with Latvia’s Igor Kovalenko at six points after seven rounds of the RTU Open chess tournament in Riga, Latvia, on Friday.

With two rounds to go, Arjun Erigaisi and Arjun Kalyan (5.5 each) were tied for the third spot with eight others. Aravindh Chithambaram, Nihal Sarin, D. Gukesh, Pranav Anand and Murali Karthikeyan (5 each) were among those sharing the 13th spot.

READ: RTU Open Chess: Arjun Kalyan stuns Praggnanandhaa

Leading results (involving Indians): Seventh round: Igor Kovalenko (Lat, 6) bt D. Gukesh (5); S.L. Narayanan (6) bt Luka Budisavljevic (Srb, 5); Arjun Kalyan (5.5) drew with Aram Hakobyan (Arm, 5.5); M. Karthikeyan (5) drew with Arjun Erigaisi (5.5); Nihal Sarin (5) drew with Grigor Grigorov (Bul, 5); Martin Stukan (Rus, 5) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (5); Tomas Laurusas (Ltu, 5.5) bt Aditya Mittal (4.5); Pranav Anand (5) drew with R. Praggnanandhaa (4.5).