CHINA, July 13: Harika Dronavalli, India’s young Grand Master from Guntur, is just a step away from winning her first Fide women’s Grand Prix chess title.
Harika played an aggressive game to earn another crucial half a point to maintain her position at the top of the score board today. This is the tenth and penultimate round of the tournament and she just needs a draw and a couple of other games to go her way to claim the title.
She is sitting pretty on 6.5 points, with Koneru Humpy (India) and Stefanova Antoeneta (Bulgaria) half a point behind on joint second with 6 points each.
Incidentally, they face off against each other in the final round, that makes Harika’s job easier.
“We played the semi-Slav opening and I equalised in the opening itself. But I made a wrong move in the middle game and got into a bit of a tangle. I had to engineer a series of forced moves to pull off a draw,” an excited Harika said.
Harika locks wits with Olga Girya of Russia in her final game tomorrow. (PTI)
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