Bihar’s Kumar Gaurav defeated Telangana’s sixth-seeded Erigaisri Arjun in the ninth round to go to the top of the table with 7.5 points in the 46th National junior (u-19) Open chess championship at Rajahmundry on Friday.
In the 31st National junior (u-19) girls’ championship, Tamil Nadu’s R. Vaishali consolidated her lead by winning the ninth round game, against Bidhar Rutumbara, to be on eight points.
The results (ninth round):
Junior (u-19) Open: Kumar Gaurav 7.5 bt E. Arjun 6.5; N. Krishna Teja 7 bt Raunak Sadwani 6.5; S. Dravid 7 bt Rajdeep Sarkar 6; Sidhant Mohapatra 7 bt S. Prasannaa 6; Y. Grahesh 6.5 drew with Aradhya Garg 6.5; Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh 6.5 bt Rakesh Kumar Nayak 5.5; V. Pranavananda 6.5 bt K. Surya Praneeth 5.5; A.L. Muthaiah 6.5 bt V.S. Raahul 5.5; S. Jayakumar 6.5 bt Hemanth Raam 5.5; Tarini Goyal 6 bt Raja Rithvik 5.5.
Junior (u-19) girls: R. Vaishali 8 bt Bidhar Rutumbara 6.5; Arpita Mukherjee 6.5 drew with Salonika Saina 6.5; Chitlange Sakshi 6 drew with K. Priyamvada 6; K. Priyanka 6.5 bt G. Harshita 5.5; G. Lasya 6 drew with C. H. Meghana 6, C.M.N. Sunyuktha 6 drew with D. Jishitha 6; Isha Sharma 6 drew with Chandreyee Hajra 6; Tejaswini Sagar 6 bt V. Toshali 5; C. R. Aasha 6 bt Meenal Gupta 5; Deodhar Vrushali Umesh 6 bt Pandey Srishti 5. — Special Correspondent
