Reigning silver medallist Y Prathiba shot into sole lead with a finely crafted victory over last round's joint leader and compatriot Kruttika Nadig in the fifth round of the girls' section in�the Asian Junior chess championship in Negombo, Sri Lanka, on Tuesday.

The college girl from Chennai, with 4.5 points, is half a point ahead of Vietnam's Luong Phong Hanh and compatriots -- defending champion Tania Sachdev and Saheli Nath.

Top seed women's International Master�Dronavalli Harika recovered from successive defeats in the last two rounds, scoring over local player Dayananda in a one-sided encounter.

Harika went down to Kruttika and Prathiba in the last two rounds and the defeats�considerably lowered her chances for a comeback in this section.

In other top board games, Tania fought hard in a Sicilian Sveshnikov but her Vietnamese opponent Hanh held on to clinch half a point in 52 moves.

Earlier in the fourth round, played last evening, Tania had a smooth victory over Rajasurya while Nadig played it out� safe, settling for peace against Hanh.

Six more rounds remain in the championship, where the stakes are high as the winner will be awarded the International Master title along with a Grandmaster norm.

In the Open section, five boys -- International Master�and defending champion Deepan Chakkravarthy, former World under-12 champion Deep Sengupta, Abhijit Gupta, Akshayraj Kore (all Indians) and Akbarnia Seyed Arash of Iran -- emerged�joint leaders, tallying four points each from their first five games.

Half a point adrift of the leaders are top seed Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam, the Indian trio of P Magesh Chandran, G Rohit, S Poobesh Anand and Khamzim Olzhas of Kazhakhastan.

Playing in the top board, Kore chose the closed Sicilian and took a safer route leading to a draw with Arash. Going in for the queen for double rook ending, Kore settled for perpetuals when things looked like going out of hand.

Arash is proving to be a darkhorse in the section with�a steady show and remains a thorn in the Indian camp.

It turned out to be a day of peace as the top three boards ended in draws.

Twelve-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam, the top seed with an Elo rating of 2435 points, played out a quiet draw with defending champion Deepan Chakkravarthy today.

"He is extremely good in endings, and is�definite Grandmaster material," opined Deepan after conceding the draw.

In the fourth round, Kore was the big winner when he defeated higher rated IM norm holder G Rohit in a keenly-contested game.