Grandmaster S. P. Sethuraman showed his true mettle crushing Gawain Jones as Indian men drew with another higher-ranked team, England, in the fifth round of the World Team Chess Championship here Saturday.
Krishnan Sasikiran suffered a rare defeat with white pieces on the second board against Luke McShane after B. Adhiban and Surya Shekhar Ganguly had played out a draw with Michael Adams and David Howell with black pieces respectively.
After Sasikiran’s loss it was left to Sethuraman and the way he responded was splendid as the Indian team remained undefeated in the biennial premier team competition.
With four rounds still to come, Russian men defeated Kazakhstan 3-1 to take their tally up to nine points out of a possible 10 match points. India and England share the second spot on seven points each while the United States follow them a half point behind.
Iran and China are on their way to resurrection as they share the fifth spot jointly on five points apiece and Kazakhstan and Sweden are next in line on four points apiece.
Azerbaijan, with three points, stand ninth in the standings, while Egypt is last.
In the women’s championship being held simultaneously, India scored an expected 4-0 victory over Egypt. The think-tank rested Eesha Karavade on the top board and Soumya Swaminathan, Padmini Rout, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni delivered the full points giving the fillip the team needed.
Chinese women came up with a splendid performance to beat Russia 2.5-1.5. It’s considered a depleted Chinese team but the team spirit is what did the trick for the Asian nation. Winning two, losing one and drawing one did the trick for Chinese eves.
With China on a perfect 10, Russia is currently second on eight points, while Ukraine follow them a full point for fourth spot on seven points. Georgia and India share the fifth spot on six points each.
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