Indian squads split round 5 scores

Indian men beat Austria, women lose to Hungary
PTI News

From our Chess Correspondent Dresden (Germany), Nov 18 (PTI) Indian men bounced back with an easy 3-1 victory over Austria in the fifth round of the 32nd Chess Olympiad now in progress here.

Aided by fine victories by former World Junior champion P Harikrishna and National Champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly, the Indians took their points tally to eight points out of a possible 10 to be placed joint seventh.

As many as six teams emerged as joint leaders on nine points in the 11-rounds event after the summit clash between Germany and Russia ended in a 2-2 draw with peace being the order of the day on all four boards.

This result enabled England, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Armenia to catch the two overnight leaders atop the tables after all these four teams scored victories over Italy, Norway, Hungary and the Netherlands respectively.

In the women’s section, World Junior Girls’ champion D Harika proved expensive as the 11th seed team succumbed to a 1.5-2.5 loss against eighth seeded Hungarians.

The loss against Hungary proved expensive to the eves as they slumped to joint 14th spot on seven points.

Nisha Mohota was on the receiving end against Vajda Szidonia on the second board while Tania Sachdev, Swati Ghate and Mary Ann Gomes played out draws against Hoang Thanh Trang, Eldiko Madl and Veronica Schneider respectively.

China emerged as the sole leader in this section after scoring a thumping 3.5-0.5 victory over Poland on the top board. Hungary solely occupies the second spot on nine points while 11 teams including top seed Russia now have eight points and share the third spot jointly.

PTI