Indian women chess players continue fine show, men falter

Indian women drubbed Mongolia to climb to the joint top position while their male counterparts slipped to the fourth spot with a shocking defeat at the hands of lower-rated Philippines after the fifth round of the chess competitions in the Asian Games in Guangzhou on Monday.

The women's quartet of D Harika, Tania Sachdev, Meenakshi Subbaraman and Nisha Mohota, undefeated so far in the competition, did not have to sweat much as they beat Mongolia by a 3.5-0.5 margin.

Harika gave India 1-0 lead after defeating Lkhamsuren Uuganba but Tania could not collect full points as she drew with lower-rated Tuvshintugs Batchi.

Meenakshi made up for Tania's draw by beating Enkhtuul Altanulzi and Nisha then got a walk over to complete India's facile win.

With four more rounds to go in the competition, India are atop the table along with hosts China on nine points with an identical four wins and a draw. Uzbekistan occupy the third spot with eight points.

Indian men's team, however, suffered their second defeat in the competition, going down 1.5-2.5 to lower-rated Philippines.

Grandmaster P Harikrishna found his higher-rated opponent So Wesley too hot to handle and conceded 0-1 lead to Philippines.

In the second game, Krishnan Sasikiran could not force a win against lower-rated Antonio Rogelio Jr and had to split points.

Surya Sekhar Ganguly recovered some of the lost ground for India by beating lower-rated Gomez John Paul but B Adhiban stumbled in the last game against Torre Eugenio to hand over the tie to Philippines.

Indian men are on joint fourth position along with Qatar and Uzbekistan on six points. China are on top with 10 points while with eight points, Philippines and Kyrgyzstan occupy the second and third spots respectively.