Date:22/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/22/stories/2007122260341900.htm

Sport

Karthikeyan triumphs

Rakesh Rao

MUMBAI: P. Karthikeyan raced away with the gold medal and much more in the Asian junior chess championship at the Goregaon Sports Club here on Friday.

In the 10th and concluding round, Karthikeyan beat one-time leader Vishnu Prasanna to tally seven points. He then waited patiently to know the outcome of the top-table battle between overnight leader Aswin Jayaram and last year’s runner-up Shyam Sundar.

Aswin needed a win to stay ahead of Karthikeyan since the latter enjoyed a superior progressive score.

Eventually, Shyam missed a winning continuation and the resultant draw left him with the bronze, Aswin with the silver and Karthikeyan with the gold.

Karthikeyan, who headed a Tamil Nadu sweep of medals in the open category, also received the title of an International Master and a nine-game Grandmaster norm.

Among the girls, Kolkata-based Mary Ann Gomes, the champion with a round to spare, showed no mercy on Kruttika Nadig and won a well-fought battle to sign off with 8.5 points.

The results (Indians unless specified): Ninth round: Open: M. Shyam Sundar (6.5) drew with Aswin Jayaram (7); P. Karthikeyan (7) bt Vishnu Prasanna (6); Parimarjan Negi (6.5) bt K. Priyadarshan (5.5).

Aditya Udeshi (5.5) lost to T. Purushothaman (6.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (6.5) bt Deep Sengupta (5); S.P. Sethuraman (6) bt Bitan Banerjee (5); Akshat Khamparia (5) lost to Saravana Krishnan (6); S. Nitin (5.5) bt Sagar Shah (5); Aziz Sharify (Afg) (5) drew with B. Adhiban (5); Debashis Das (5) drew with Swayams Mishra (5).

Swapnil Dhopade (5.5) bt N. Surendran (4.5); Rakesh Kulkarni (4.5) lost to Sayed Alavi (Iri) (5); Abhishek Das (5) bt Santhosh Kumar (4); Sumant Subramanium (Mal) ( 4.5) drew with Meghan Gupte (4.5); Shreyans K. Shah (4.5) drew with Aniruddha Deshpande (4.5.

Girls: Kruttika Nadig (4.5) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (8.5); Padmini Rout (7) bt Soumya Swaminathan (5); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (6) bt S. Harini ( 4.5); P. Sivasankari (5) lost to P. Priya (5.5); Atousa Pourkashiyan (Iri) (5) bt J. Mohana Priya (4); Tara Rahimi (Iri) (2.5) lost to P. Uthra (5).