World Chess Cup | P Harikrishna, B Adhiban progress to next round as M Karthikeyan crashes out
A mixed day for the Indian camp in the World Cup saw grandmasters P Harikrishna and B Adhiban progressing into the next round while Murali Karthikeyan was shown the door by Francisco Pons. Viswanathan Anand, S P Sethuraman, and Vidit Gujrathi had already progressed to the second round earlier.
It was a hard-fought game where Grandmaster and former world junior champion Pentala Harikrishna had to dig deep with two sets going to the tie-breaks before he finally emerged victorious against Cuba’s Yuri Vidal Gonzales beating him 3.5-2.5 on Wednesday. Harikrishna will face compatriot SP Sethuraman in the next round, who produced a major upset in the last round by knocking out former FIDE champion, Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine.
Baskaran Adhiban, another grandmaster, also progressed to the round of 64 after having a comfortable win over Vietnam’s Nguyen Ngoc Troung Son in the rapid games. However, two-time national champion Murali Karthikeyan couldn’t go past Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain in the same category as he lost in the tie-break.
India still
While Vidit Santosh Gujrathi is scheduled to play a supposedly easy game against Vietnam’s Le Quang next, Adhiban will have a tough nut to crack against Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Viswanathan Anand will definitely start as a