International Master K Rathnakaran continued with his fine form as he defeated Grandmaster Alexander Kovchan of Ukraine to jump to joint ninth spot after the end of the sixth round of Dubai International Open chess tournament here on Sunday.
After winning with black pieces, Rathnakaran emerged as the best performing Indian in the fray thus far and moved to 4.5 points out of a possible six games. Meanwhile, draws were the order of the day at the top of the table as top seed David Howell of England signed peace with American counterpart Alexander Shabalov, French Andrei Istratescu drew with Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia while Igor Kovalenko (4.5) of Latvia achieved the same result against Nils Grandeloius of Sweden.PTI
