In the women's event, the country's top player Koneru Humpy has 3.5 points with two wins and three draws after five rounds as does R Vaishali who has scored three victories to go with a draw apart from a loss.
S L Narayanan, Harsha Bharathakoti, Karthik Venkataraman and Shamsiddin Vokhidov, the other players who had an outside chance of a shot at the title, missed out after drawn games.
Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram emerged champion in the 22nd Dubai Open chess tournament in Dubai on Sunday, with 7.5 points as seven Indians finished in the top 10 with R Praggnanandhaa sharing second spot with five others.
While Vaishali got the better of Ukraine's Inna Gopanenko in round eight, Rout defeated Russia's Baira Kovanova.
Vaishali, sister of the Indian chess prodigy and GM R Praggnanandhaa, scored impressive victories over Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) and Russia's Valentina Gunina on the opening day of the Blitz championship.
Both Anand and Sethuraman inched themselves up to five points out of a possible seven and shared the joint eighth spot after a rather dull day that witnessed several draws on the top tables.
High-flying with his superman-cap, overnight joint leader Grandmaster Gupta ran out of steam and surrendered to Nakamura on a day when B Adhiban also did well to hold Levon Aronian of Armenia to a creditable draw.
Former World champion Viswanathan Anand struggled for the second day running as he was held to a draw by almost-retired Robert Hess of the United States in the second round of Isle of Man International Chess tournament.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is just 13 years old but the boy is already going places and this was his second win against a 2700 Grandmaster.
India's Padmini Rout scored an impressive victory with plenty of fireworks to maintain her joint lead in the Girls section but favourite Viddit Santosh Gujrathi suffered a shock loss in the sixth round of the LIC World Junior Chess championship in Pune.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Friday
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