Grandmaster D Harika missed out on some chances to settle for a draw with Georgia's Sopiko Guramishvili, while Padmini Rout survived a scare before enforcing a draw with China's Tan Zhongyi in the first game of the third round of World Women's Chess Championship in Tehran.
D Harika drew with Gu Xiaobing of China in the 11th round of the World Junior Chess Championship
After the first game against the same opponent ended in a draw, Harika was with black pieces in the second and she employed a French defence and Kosteniuk did not have many answers.
Back in chess just before the Olympiad after a nearly two-year hiatus, Humpy, who has been among the top women players for a long time, will now have to wait for another two years to have a go at the next world championship cycle.
Indian Grandmasters Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Adhiban Baskaran registered wins in the first game of the two-game mini match in the second round of the FIDE chess World Cup in Sochi on Thursday.
Harika had carried the Indian hopes nicely till the tie-breaker of the third round. However, she got a jolt in the first game of the rapid tie-break where both players had 25 minutes on their clock.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand continued to struggle in his first open tournament in 23 years as he suffered a shock defeat at the hands of French Grandmaster Adrien Demuth in the fifth round of the masters section of Gibraltar chess festival in Gibraltar on Sunday.
Back to the Olympiad after a gap of 12 years, Anand was precise in calculation and brilliant in judgement giving away nothing to Ragger who was all at sea defending a difficult position out of the opening on Tuesday evening.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday
P V Sindhu opens her campaign in the China Open women's singles against Evgeniya Kosetskaya of Russia, in Fuzhou, China, on Tuesday.
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