FIDE World Cup: Arjun storms into quarterfinals of the World Cup
With just 16 players out of 206 participants that started the event remaining in the fray, most of the players decided against taking undue risk and decided to wait for the next game.
World champion D Gukesh overcame a loss against Leinier Dominguez Perez to beat the American duo of Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana to stand at fourth spot.
Aronian sits on six points, followed closely by compatriot Fabiano Caruana on five after two wins and a draw. Gukesh shares the third place with another American, Wesley So, while Vachier-Lagrave and Leinier Dominguez Perez are tied for fifth with three points each.
Like Gukesh, Aronian was just able to draw two games and lost one.
World champion Dommaraju Gukesh scored one win and four draws on the opening day to slip to joint-sixth in the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz chess tournament, a part of the Grand chess tour, in St. Louis (USA), on Friday.
Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi will take on an in-form Levon Aronian of Armenia, while P Harikrishna will have to tackle giant-killer Jose Eduardo Martinez Alacantara of Mexico in the pre-quarterfinals of the World Cup in Panaji, Goa.
World champion GM D Gukesh finished tied sixth as Levon Aronian of USA convincingly won the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz that concluded in St Louis.
Indian Grandmasters Sandipan Chanda and Surya Shekhar Ganguly kept themselves in contention for top honours after drawing with Etienne Bacrot of France and Yuri Kryvoruchko of Ukraine respectively in the seventh round of Fujairah International chess tournament, in Fujaira, UAE, on Tuesday. The Indian duo remained in joint-lead on five points along with the Ukrainian trio of Sergey Fedorchuk, Andrey Sumets and Alexander Moiseenko, Liem Le Quang of Vietnam and Bacrot.
Viswanthan Anand got back into the reckoning by defeating compatriot M Shyam Sundar in a one-sided affair in the Isle of Man International chess tournament on Wednesday. On a good day for Indians, former World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta tamed the highly-regarded Liem Le Quang of Vietnam.