Himanshu Sharma

6. Himanshu Sharma: Seeded 26; Rating 2373; Performance of 2448 against opponents with an average rating of 2273. A gain of 18 rating points.

MUCH in the mould of Diwakar, Himanshu played with a lot of heart and justified his place among the qualifiers. This Haryana player, perhaps, the first from his State to make it to the National `A', recovered from the ninth-round loss to Lalith Babu by drawing with Deepan Chakkravarthy and beating former qualifiers, V. Hariharan and D. Harika, before shaking hands with Shivanandan. Earned a fine draw against Ramesh in the seventh round.