Tania Sachdev wins Asian Chess

Grandmaster-norm holder Tania Sachdev won the Asian Women's Chess Championship after drawing with Chinese Ju Wenjun in the ninth and final round in Tehran on Tuesday.

Tania, who turned 21 a few weeks back, tallied 6.5 points and qualified for the gold medal thanks to a better tie-break score than top seed Lufei Ruan of China, who also scored as many points but had to be content with the silver.

In the final round, Ruan defeated local hopeful Atousa Pourkashiyan to match Tania on points but the tie-breaker was another story.

It turned out to first title victory for Tania apart from age-group tournaments as the National champion coasted to her maiden gold medal amongst seniors.

The Delhi-based girl did not have to do much in the final round game with black as Wenjun also played it safe. But once the game between Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam and her compatriot Le Thanh Tu ended in a draw, Tania had no doubt about winning the championship.

For the record, Nguyen won the bronze medal on best tie-break score.

"I think this is my best result till date; I would even say this overshadows my GM norm a bit as this was a qualification event for the World championship with only three seats amongst so many strong players," Tania said after her title victory was confirmed.

Tania in fact had a forgettable performance in the just-concluded Asian Zonals at Bangladesh where she could only finish third in a field of five players.

"I guess I took my lessons well from the Zonal disaster. I guess I was just trying too hard for no apparent reasons there; here was a different story as I just took one game at a time without bothering much about the result, and luckily for me the right approach clicked," Tania said.

Women Grandmaster Nisha Mohota finished fourth after a fine last round victory over Tan Zhongyi of China. Nisha finished with six points in all.

Important and Indian results final round: Ju Wenjun (Chn, 5.5) drew with Tania Sachdev (6.5); Le Thanh Tu (Vie, 6) drew with Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie, 6); Lufei Ruan (Chn, 6.5) beat Atousa Pourkashiyan (Iri, 5); Zhang Xiaowen (Chn, 5.5) drew with Huang Qian (Chn, 5.5); Nisha Mohota (6) beat Tan Zhongyi (Chn, 5); Eesha Karavade (5) beat Wang Yu A. (Chn, 4); Aarthie Ramaswamy (4) lost to Le Kieu Thien Kim (Vie, 5); Pham Bich Ngoc (Vie, 4) drew with Swati Ghate (4); Kinarik Mouradian (Lib, 3) beat Amrutha Mokal (3).