Krutika Nadiq pulls off
spectacular win

Showing glimpses of her talent, India's Krutika Nadiq pulled off a spectacular victory against formidable Yang Shen of China in the fourth round to take the lead in the under-14 girls' section in the World Youth chess championship, in Heraklion (Greece), on Monday.

On a good day for Indian players, when as many as 17 out of 28 registered victories, Parimarjan Negi maintained his winning run in the under-10 boys' section, comprehensively beating Ivekovic Zvonmir of Croatia.

In the same category, Y Sandeep also emerged victorious brushing aside the challenge of Poland's Zbijniew Strzemiecki with white pieces.

Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna's hopes of becoming the sole leader in the under-18 boys' section suffered a setback when he failed to beat the lower-ranked opponent Lopez Silva of Chile in a fourth round match.

Playing a safe game from the beginning, Lopez gave little chance to his famed opponent and managed a draw after the Indian made a technical skirmish of Sicilian Sveshnikov with black pieces.

The day belonged to Pune-based Krutika who put up a brilliant performance to beat last year's Under-12 champion Shen. Playing white, Krutika employed a dangerous pawn sacrifice variation in the initial phase of a Ruy Lopez defence.

Shen had little clue about on-board happenings as the Indian slowly regained her pawn and maintained a superior position right till the end.

Unable to hold on, the Chinese girl finally succumbed to the enormous pressure around her king and entered a lost king and pawn endgame where the Indian made no mistakes to pocket full points.

Asian juinor champion Tania Sachdev also put up a good show to beat Maria de Plazaola of Argentina in the Under-16 (girls) category. Seeded 11th, Tania on 3.5 points moved to sole lead with this win.

In the under-10 girls' section, Asian champion P Lakshmi Sahiti defeated Wing-Yan Yuen of France with black pieces and took her tally to 3.5 points. M Manogna of India drew her second straight game to finish the round with 3 points.

Former world under-12 champion Deep Sengupta came back into the reckoning with a hard-fought victory against Mezhlumyan Yahram of Armenia with black pieces in the Under-14 boys category.

K Nikhilesh Kumar is leading this category amongst Indians with 3.5 points while Sengupta moved to three with the victory against Yahram.