Harika wins to emerge sole leader

Women Grandmaster Dronavalli Harika took the seventh round honours with a brilliant victory to emerge the sole leader in the under-14 girls section of the World Youth Chess  Championship in Greece on Wednesday.

Top seeded Harika beat Germany's Ohme Melanie to take her points tally to 6.5 out of a possible 7 and is half a point ahead of Elena Tairova of Russia who has 6 points in her bag.

With just four more rounds to go, the Indian girl looks all set to clinch the gold medal in this section.

Meanwhile, in the under-12 boys, International Master norm holder Parimarjan Negi suffered a reversal at the hands of Chinese Zhao Nan in a keenly contested game.

Leading the event thus far, the loss proved costly for Negi as he slipped to share the second spot with Ding Liren of China and Julian Jorczik of Germany while Nan emerged as the sole leader for the first time taking his tally to 6.5 points.

Today was the last day of the event with double rounds and even though Negi still has chances to win the gold, his next game will be crucial as he takes on one of the pre-tournament favourite Liren.

Against Nan, Negi over-stretched his position after attaining a level endgame and his bid to improve the position was finely foiled by the Chinese.

In the under-12 girls, India's best bet P Lakshmi Sahiti slipped further after she was held to a draw by Mariya Muzychuk of Hungary.

After the draw, Sahiti inched to 5 points while Kulon Klaudia of Poland moved to 6.5 after another emphatic victory.

Also on 5 points in this section was G Madnasari, who signed peace with Nazi Paikidze earlier in the day.

There was no good news in the under-10 girls either for Indian contestants as both S Tejaswini and J Mohana Priya succumbed against Nino Anakidze of Georgia and Qurbonboyeva Sarvinoz of Uzbekistan respectively.

In other important games involving Indians, Y Sandeep drew with compatriot S Ravi Teja to move to 5 points in under-12 boys while S Arun Prasad went down fighting against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in under-16 boys.