World Junior Chess C’ship: Praggnanandhaa stuns Narayanan

R. Praggnanandhaa continued his magical run in the tourney, defeating S. L. Narayanan in the fifth round.

R. Praggnanandhaa is now in the joint second position with 4.5 points.

Wonder-kid R. Praggnanandhaa continued his magical run by stunning fourth seeded compatriot S. L. Narayanan and shared the second spot with two others at 4.5 points after five rounds of World junior (under-20) chess championship here on Friday.

Russia’s Kirill Alekseenko maintained his all-win sequence to emerge as the leader going into Saturday’s rest day.

• Open: Xu Xiangyu (Chn, 4.5) bt M. Karthikeyan (3.5); S. L. Narayanan (3) lost to R. Praggnanandhaa (4.5); Aravindh Chithambaram (4) bt Peir Luigi Basso (Ita, 3); Shardul Gagare (3.5) drew with Harsha Bharathakoti (3.5); Sidhant Mohapatra (3) drew with Gergely Kantor (Hun, 3); Nichita Morozov (Mda, 3) drew with Krishna Teja (3); Vaibhav Suri (3) bt Richard Chen (Can, 2); Kumar Gaurav (3) bt Sanchez Jorge Marcos (Cub, 2); Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh (3) bt Elkhan Bayramov (Aze, 2); Raunak Sadhwani (1.5) lost to Maaten de Vleeschauwer (Bel, 2.5); Lukasz Nowak (Pol, 1) lost to Tarini Goyal (2).
• Girls: Gunay Mammadzada (Aze, 3) lost to Aakshaksha Hagawane (4); K. Priyanka (2.5) lost to R. Vaishali (3.5); Pratyusha Bodda (2.5) lost to Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (Uzb, 3.5); Arpita Mukherjee (2.5) lost to Anastasya Paramzina (Rus, 3.5); Tea Gueci (Ita, 2.5) drew with G. Lasya (2.5); Parnali Dharia (2.5) drew with Boldbaatar Altantuya (Mgl, 2.5); Assel Serikbay (Kaz, 3) bt Rutumbara Bidhar (2); Mohandeseh Alijanzadeh (Iri, 1.5) lost to M. Mahalakshmi (2.5); Saina Salonika (2) bt Jesse Niki February (RSA, 1).