Sports Shorts: Anand jumps to joint lead

Anand beats Nepomniachtchi to jump to joint lead

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia in the seventh round to jump to the joint top position in the Sinquefield Cup, a part of the Grand Chess tour in St Louis.

The second straight victory with white pieces took Anand to 4.5 points from seven rounds and with just two rounds remaining in the super tournament, the Indian ace now shares the lead with overnight leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Levon Aronian of Armenia.

It was a customary Sicilian Najdorf by Nepomniachtchi and Anand went for a popular system he has been employing recently.

The middle game gave a slight advantage to Anand but it proved to be optical as the game progressed. After the trading of queens, the position simplified further to a rook and minor piece endgame.

"I was not thinking of an advantage at this point," Anand said after the game.

The position equal poised but suddenly Nepomniachtchi had a major lapse in concentration as he gave a pawn and then followed it up with another erroneous move.

"He just seemed to fall apart," said Anand as Nepomniachtchi, visibly angry with himself, left the hall after the game that lasted 40 moves.

The top four Anand, Vachier, Aronian and Carlsen are the only four players to have a plus score in the tournament while the remaining six, are either from Russia or the host federation.

Results after Round 7: Vishwanathan Anand (IND, 4.5) beat Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS, 2.5); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA,4.5) drew with Sergey Karjakin (RUS, 3.5); Peter Svidler (RUS,3) drew with Magnus Carlsen (NOR, 4); Hikaru Nakamura (USA,2.5) lost to Levon Aronian (ARM, 4.5); Wesley So (USA, 2.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (USA, 3.5).

Indian archers make positive start in WC Stage 4

Indian archers began their campaign in the World Cup Stage 4 on a positive note by advancing into round three of the individual section, in Berlin.

Barring Jayanta Talukdar who made a round two exit, all the seven recurve archers kept their hopes alive in their respective sections, on a day Indian mixed team's campaign went up in smoke with a 0-6 loss to Turkey in the quarter-finals.

Having begun with a 6-0 drubbing of their Polish opponents, the third seeded Indian recurve mixed team pair of Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari went down without any fight against Mete Gazoz and Yasemin Anagoz.

Former world number one Deepika, who got a bye to round three after finishing third in the qualification round, will face a strong challenge tomorrow against London Olympics silver medalist Aida Roman.
The Mexican had a poor qualification round finishing 30th.

Deepika's team-mates Bombayla Devi Laishram, Promila Daimary and Monika Saren also won their respective matches.