The Hindu : Humpy, Harika share lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 23, 2003

Sport

Sport - Chess

Humpy, Harika share lead

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

— Photo: Ramesh Kurup

S. Vijayalakshmi and China's Xu Yuanyuan (in the foreground) and Dronavalli Harika and Koneru Humpy (in the background) battling it out in the Asian women's chess championship at Kozhikode on Friday.

KOZHIKODE AUG. 22. Koneru Humpy felt a little strange on Thursday night. It was as if she was looking at her own image in the mirror, as she prepared for her game against Dronavalli Harika.

``It was like preparing for a game against myself,'' said Humpy, shortly after she was held to a draw by her young admirer, and rival for the day and possibly for the title as well, in the sixth round of the 10th Asian women's chess championship at Hotel Taj Residency here on Friday.

The draw on the top board meant the two still shared the lead with five points each with three rounds remaining. Half-a-point behind were two former World junior champions, Zhao Xue and Xu Yuanyuan, whose surprisingly easy victory against S. Vijayalakshmi on the second board came as a big setback for the host.

Meanwhile, veteran Bhagyashree Thipsay, who was the last Indian to win this tournament way back in 1991, ensured that the great Indian saga of revenge against the Chinese continued. She shocked third seed Wang Pin, who should be playing in probably her worst form ever, to avenge her defeat in the 2000 championship at Udaipur. For poor Wang, it was her third loss in four days to lower-rated opponents.

Humpy had found that Harika had been playing many of the openings that she did, in various stages of her career. Though the top seed, who had black, did manage to somewhat surprise the 12-year-old with an unexpected line in the English Opening, she was in for a surprise herself soon. Harika made her intentions clear at the outset. She needed a draw, and wasted no time to exchange the moves.

The results (sixth round): Dronavalli Harika 5 drew with Koneru Humpy 5; Xu Yuanyuan (Chn) 4.5 bt S. Vijayalakshmi 4; Zhao Xue (Chn) 4.5 bt Gu Xiaobing (Chn) 3.5; Zhang Jilin (Chn) 4 drew with Wang Yu (Chn) 4; Aarthie Ramaswamy 3.5 drew with Le Kieu Thien Kim (Vie) 4; Hoang Thanh Trang (Vie) 4 bt Swati Ghate 3; Li Ruofan (Chn) 3.5 drew with Huang Qian (Chn) 3.5; M. Safira Shanaz 3.5 drew with Tania Sachdev 3.5; Wang Pin 2.5 lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay 4; Maria Sergeyeva (Kaz) 3.5 bt J.E. Kavitha 2.5; Ruan Lufei (Chn) 3 drew with Shen Yang (Chn) 3; Y. Pratibha 2.5 drew with Nguyen Thi Thanh Anh (Vie) 2.5; P. Priya 2 lost to Nisha Mohota 3; S. Meenakshi 3 bt Vineetha Wijesuriya (Sri) 2; Tian Tian (Vie) 3 bt Eesha Karvade 1.5; Koneru Chandra Hawsa 2.5 bt Shabana Parveen (Ban) 1.5; Saimeera Ravi 2.5 bt Swati Mohota 1.5; Anupama Gokhale 2.5 bt M.R. Sangeetha 1; K. Lakshmi Praneetha 1 bt Lidya Malinicheva (Uzb) 0.5.

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