Harika, Ramya Krishna in joint lead

India's Dronavalli Harika and Ramya Krishna emerged joint leaders after registering comprehensive victories in the fifth round, in the under-12 category, of the World Youth Chess Championship in Heraklion (Greece) on Tuesday.

On yet another fruitful day for Indian girls, Krutika Nadig secured a creditable draw against second seed Bela Khotenashvili of Georgia in the under-16 section, while M Manogna beat Christina Tartacuta in a fifth round game in the under-10 category.

In the boys' section, Grandmaster Pendyala Harkrishna continued to excel with white pieces and scored his third victory with the favourable colour in the under-18 section.

On the receiving end was German Drabke Lorenz, who was outplayed in a complicated queen and pawns endgame arising oof an English opening.

Harikrishna, with two draws with black pieces, is now in joint third position with 4 points.

Georgian International Masters Zaviad Izoria and Davit Artunian share the lead in this section with 4.5 points apiece.

Playing an aggressive game, Harika crashed through the defences of overnight leader Muzychuk to emerge as joint leader on 4.5 points along side Ramya Krishna and Tan Zhongyi of China.

With six more rounds remaining, Harika plays Krishna in the next round.

Playing black in the fifth round, Harika opened with the Sicilian defence and was pleasantly surprised to spot an inferior move order employed by Muzychuk in the initial stages.

In a perfect follow up to cash on her opponent's fault, Harika sacrificed an exchange as early as the 13th move and ended up with two extra pawns after a tactical battle.

As the game progressed, Harika took control of the situation to wrap up the board in 64 moves.

Ramya Krishna was also not much behind Harika when it came to outplaying the opponent. The Reti opening with white pieces against Teodara Traistaru gave Krishna a slight advantage after the opening and the game drifted in to the endgame with roughly equal chances for both.

However, Ramya Krishna took the initiative and struck with a perfect assessment of the situation that steered the game to a king and pawns endgame where both players promoted their pawn to queen but Traistaru found her queen falling to a check.

In the match against Khotenashvili, one of the favourites in her category, Krutika Nadig played a solid game right through and gave little chances.

Amongst the boys, Parimarjan Negi survived a scare at the hands of Arnold Marc Tyler of United States in the under-10 category.

Parimarjan, who started poorly, had a bad position in the middle game too. However with resourceful play, the Delhi boy bounced back to post a win.

Another contender in the under-10 category, Y Sandeep was not so lucky as he went down fighting against Chinese Ding Liren.