Asian junior girls champion Mary Ann Gomes made a stride forward for the gold medal after defeating Maria Ignacz of Hungary in the sixth round of the Under-18 section of World youth girls' chess championship in Antalya, Turkey.

The sixth victory on the trot by the Kolkata-based girl helped her retain full point lead over nearest rivals in the strongest girls' event here. Playing black Mary showed maturity after being pushed to the wall in her English defense
in coming out unscathed and set up a fine trap that spelt doom for Maria. The complications cleared after Mary won an exchange and the rest was routine technique. The game lasted 31 moves.

"I guess I was in some serious trouble after the opening but luckily for me Maria did not handle it well", Mary said.   Kiran Monisha Mohanty also came back in to reckoning with a fluent victory over Croatian Petra Kruljac. Mohanty, 4 points, won in just 24 moves after Petra blundered a piece. The Indian medal prospects suffered a setback in the under-10 and under-12 girls' section as C H Meghana and G Aishwarya [Images] lost their 6th round games.

However the Indian hopes remained bright in the under-12 section where Priyanka Kumari rose to the occasion to beat Veronika Lezhepekova of Russia [Images]. Priyanka took her tally to impressive 5 points after the vital triumph and is now in joint third spot in this championship.

In the under-14 girls, J Mohana Priya and Shalmali Gagre also remained on course and reached 4.5 points but the form of best Indian hope Padmini Rout remained a cause of concern as she conceded another draw in round six.