NEW DELHI, Oct 28: Sixteen-year old Indian Grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonca shot into the sole lead in the Open section after the third round of the Asian Continental Chess Championship here on Friday.
The Goa player beat Mongolia’s Tsegmed Batchuluun in 49 moves in the third round to move ahead of the field with three points. A bunch of players including top-seeded Indian R Praggnanandhaa are in second place with 2.5 points.
GM Praggnanandhaa, who began with a draw, posted his second straight win, getting the better of International Master M Pranesh in a 40-move encounter.
GM Karthikeyan Murali, who was among the leaders after round two, was held to a draw by compatriot Koustav Chatterjee.
Among the players with 2.5 points are: Karthikeyan Murali, Koustav Chatterjee, SL Narayanan, Sandipan Chanda, B Adhiban, Pranav Anand, M Shyam Sundar and Harsha Bharathakoti apart from Turkmenistan’s Maksat Atabayev and Rinat Jumabayev (Kazakhstan).
In the women’s event, 10 players are in joint top spot with 2.5 points after three rounds. The list includes top-seed Tania Sachdev of India, her compatriots Rakshitta Ravi, Soumya Swaminathan, Vantika Agrawal, Priyanka Nuttaki and P V Nandhidhaa.
Sachdev scored a win over Kiran Manisha Mohanty in 37 moves while Soumya Swaminathan was held to a draw by Liya Kurmangaliyeva of Kazakhstan and Rakshitta Ravi shared honours with Thi Mai Hung Nguyen (Vietnam).
In other results, Vantika Agrawal beat compatriot Isha Sharma while Nandhidhaa got the better of the experienced Swati Ghate and Nuttaki beat Aashna Makhija. (PTI)
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