V. Pranav moves, Divya crashes out at Chess World Cup

NEW DELHI: Six are already in. Another five are in with a chance. India’s lesser-known players aren’t doing badly at the chess World Cup.

Leading the hosts charge into the second round was V. Pranav, the highest-ranked Indian apart from those top players seeded directly into the second round. And he did it in the most convincing fashion.

All that the reigning World junior champion needed was a draw in the second game of the first round, but he defeated Algeria’s Ala Eddine Boulrens for the second time in as many days to win their mini match 2-0.

Joining him in the second round are M. Pranesh, Raunak Sadhwani, P. Iniyan, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, and Karthik Venkataraman. Like Pranesh, the season campaigner Ganguly also registered a perfect score against Ahmad Ahmadzada of Azerbaijan.

The campaign of Divya Deshmukh also ended. The only woman in this World Cup went down to Greece’s Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis 0-2. Agencies

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