Asian Women’s champion Tania Sachdev turned down an early draw offer and went down fighting against Tan Zhongyi of China while Nisha Mohota lost to local star Nadezhda Kosintseva for the second time in a row and had to sign on her exit papers.
While the tie-breaker for the opening round are yet to be played, World Junior girls’ champion D Harika is the other Indian who made it to the next round at the expense of Vera Nebolsina of Russia.
After winning the first game as black, Harika was in her elements in the return game too and won a long-drawn affair to seal a 2-0 victory like Humpy.
For Humpy, it will be adequate rest till the third round now as she gets a rest over next four days when the tiebreaker and the second round will be played. The reason for this elevation is the withdrawal of the Georgian duo that was facing each other in the first round and the winner was slated to meet Humpy after she won against Yorsa. With one round less to play, the momentum has now shifted greatly in Humpy’s favour and the chance to create the rarest chess history of one Nation’s domination in World, World Women’s and world Junior championships looks a real possibility.
For the record, Humpy needed just under 20 moves to demolish Yorsa from the white side of an irregular opening set up. The Egyptian was swimming in dangerous waters right after the opening and was punished adequately.
Harika displayed fine endgame skills to down Nebolsina from a Queen pawn opening game. Under pressure to level scores, Nebolsina missed on a few equalising opportunities before she found herself in a hopeless situation.
Tania Sachdev blundered from a position of strength against younger Chinese Tan who played the King’s Indian defense as black. After the opening Tania had the better position but fell under acute time pressure that led to a simple tactical error. The game lasted 42 moves.
Nisha Mohota could not do much with her white pieces against Nadezhda and lost the ensuing heavy pieces endgame arising out of another queen pawn opening of the day.
