Pony-tailed Divya Deshmukh provided the lone bright spot after most seventh-round results proved disappointing for the host in the World Junior Chess Championship here on Monday.
On a day when fifth seed R. Vaishali, Rakshitta Ravi, Arpita Mukherjee, Sakshi Chitlange lost, Divya’s citymate from Nagpur Srishti Pandey upstaged Vantika Agarwal.
In the open section, M. Karthikeyan, Aravindh Chithambaram and R. Praggnanandhaa, seeded two, three and eight, drew their games before Ukraine’s Evgeny Shtembuliak emerged as the sole leader with six points.
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Divya, seeded ninth, completely outfoxed Mongolian Boldbaatar Altantuya, leader after four rounds. Facing French Defence, Divya opted for a variation that she never played before and that set the Mongolian girl thinking.
Soon it became apparent that Altantuya was caught unaware. She committed a series of mistakes and Divya came up with fitting responses to tighten her grip. Eventually, Divya won in 43 moves.
Lesser-known K. Priyanka (4) was the other noted Indian performer as she managed to hold a struggling Chinese top seed Zhu Jiner in 60 moves, with only the kings left on the board.
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