Round 4: Women’s ‘A’ team beats Hungary

CHENNAI: Tania Sachdev battled long and hard to rake in a precious point as top seed India ‘A’ registered a 2.5-1.5 win against Hungary in the fourth round match of the Women section at the 44th Chess Olympiad in Mahabalipuram near here on Monday.

After Koneru Humpy, D Harika and R Vaishali ended with draws in their respective encounters, Tania rose to the occasion brilliantly. She defeated Zsoka Gaal to earn the decisive point as well as the match for the team.

“We played a strong opponent and now, it is time to play stronger teams. So, I think we need to be ready for the competition. We are looking forward to the next match,” Tania said after the match.

The India ‘B’ team edged out Estonia with a similar 2.5-1.5 score. Vantika Agrawal, extending her victorious run, clinched the winning point while the other three India women played out draws. The India ‘C’ team went down 1-3 to Georgia.

Meanwhile, in a major upset, Fabiano Caruana of the USA was beaten by Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan. With the help of the 17-year-old prodigy Abdusattorov’s efforts, Uzbekistan held the top-seeded USA to a 2-2 draw in the Open section.

India ‘B’ emerged victorious by a 3-1 scoreline against Italy. D Gukesh and Nihal Sarin scored victories while R Praggnanandhaa and Raunak Sadhwani had to settle for draws. Gukesh played a fantastic game against Daniele Vocaturo, who had held Magnus Carlsen to a draw on Sunday. The second-seeded India ‘A’ was held to a 2-2 draw by France with all the four board splitting points while India ‘C’ lost to Spain by a 1.5-2.5 scoreline.

Open: India ‘A’ drew with France 2-2 (P Harikrishna drew with Jules Moussard, Vidit Gujrathi drew with Laurent

Fressinet, Arjun Erigaisi drew with Matthieu Cornette, SL Narayanan drew with Maxime Lagarde); India ‘B’ beat Italy 3-1 (D Gukesh beat Daniele Vocaturo, Nihal Sarin beat Luca Jr Moroni, R Praggnanandhaa drew with Lorenzo Lodici, Raunak Sadhwani drew with Francesco Sonis); India ‘C’ lost to Spain 1.5-2.5 (Surya Shekhar Ganguly drew with Alexei Shirov, SP Sethuraman drew with Francisco Vallejo Pons, Abhijeet Gupta lost to David Anton Guijarro, Karthikeyan Murali drew with Jaime Latasa Santos).