Baku (Azerbaijan), Sept 12:
Highest rated Indian P Harikrishna crushed Max Illingworth of Australia to virtually book a second round berth in the World Chess Cup now underway here.
Grandmaster S P Sethuraman also scored an easy victory over Russian Sanan Sjugirov in the first game of the first round of this knock-out event among 128 players.
Harikrishna and Sethuraman just need a draw with white pieces in the return game to meet each other in the second round of one of the toughest event, based upon the survival-of-the-fittest theory.
It turned out to be a mixed day otherwise for the remaining Indians in the fray as B Adhiban could get a half point against Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia while Vidit Gujrathi achieved the same result against Bruzon Lazarov of Cuba.
M R Lalith Babu also secured half a point against much higher rated Radoslav Wojtazsek of Poland but Surya Shekhar Ganguly ended on the receiving end against talented Russian Vladislav Artemiev of Russia.
The USD 1.6 million event did not have any major hiccups for the higher ranked players in the opening round as most of them cruised through. However, Anish Giri of Holland and Boris Gelfand of Israel were amongst the few stars who were held to draws by lesser known opponents in the first game.
With one more game to go under standard time control in round one, none of the stars look in any danger of crossing the first round and the next round will see more lively pairings on almost all boards.(PTI)
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