The Bombay Express
Sunday, October 24, 2004
India lose to leader Ukraine
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Posted online: Sunday, October 24, 2004 at 0043 hours IST
MALLORCA, OCTOBER 22: The Indian men succumbed to their first defeat
against Ukraine going down by a minimal margin of 1.5-2.5 in a keenly
contested match of the seventh round of the Chess Olympiad here.
For India, Viswanathan Anand drew with Vassily Ivanchuk, Sasikrian
held former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov to a draw, P Harikrishna
missed his winning chances before signing peace with Pavel Eljanov
while Abhijit Kunte was humbled by Sergey Karjakin.
In the biggest sensational result of the Olympiad, ninth seed
Bulgaria defeated top seed and Russia 2.5-1.5 to change the equations
dramatically.
As things stand now at the half-way stage in the biggest chess event,
Ukraine moved to 21.5 points after their triumph over India and
also stretched its lead to 2 points. Anand had come well-armed for
this important match and for the first time Ivanchuk was in serious
troubles in this Olympiad.
Eves hold US
Indian eves held third seed United States to a creditable draw
in the seventh round of the women’s section. It turned out to be
an all-drawn encounter for the Indian girls as all three — Koneru
Humpy, S Vijayalakshmi and Dronavalli Harika settled for truce with
Zsuzsa Polgar, IM Irina Krush and WGN Anna Zatonskih without any
real troubles.
The Indian girls next in the standing list along with US, Russia,
France, Ukraine, Sweden, Bulgaria, Armenia and Kazakhstan who all
have 13.5 points.