Sport - Chess

Tania Sachdev in sole lead

NEW DELHI: National woman champion Tania Sachdev surprised fifth seeded Russian Grandmaster Oleg Korneev to take the lead at four points from as many rounds of the Sort Open chess tournament at Sort, Spain, on Wednesday.

Tania, who overpowered Chilean International Master Reiner Castellanos in the third round earlier in the day, is half a point ahead of four players, including compatriot Aswin Jayaram.

Dinesh Kumar Sharma upset top seed Peru’s Grandmaster Julio Granda Zuniga.

Meanwhile, at Montcada (Spain), R.B. Ramesh (two points) scored his second straight win after facing Spain’s Fransisco Garcia Jimenez in the third round of the 15th Torneig International Open.

The results (involving Indians): Fourth round: Tania Sachdev (4) bt Oleg Korneev (Rus, 3); Rashad Babaev (Aze, 2.5) lost to Aswin Jayaram (3.5); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (3) bt Julio Granda Zuniga (Per, 2); Abhishek Das (2) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 3); Abhijeet Gupta (2.5) drew with Yvain Bruned (Esp, 2.5); Kruttika Nadig (2.5) drew with Reiner Castellanos (Chi, 2.5); Aleksander Colovic (Mkd, 2) lost to R. Arun Karthik (3); Bernd Kohlweyer (Ger, 3) bt T. Purushothaman (2); Vishal Sareen (3) bt Vianney Bruned (Esp, 2); Sahaj Grover (2) lost to Tatiana Kononenko (Ukr, 3); Eesha Karavade (2.5) bt Guillermo Boxade Roca (Esp, 2); Miguel Rada Equiza (Esp, 2.5) bt Devangi Patankar (1.5); Josep Solsona Manonelles (Esp, 1.5) lost to Soumya Swaminathan (2); L. Shobana Iswarya (2) bt Julio Nieto de la Cruz (Esp, 1).