The Hindu : FIDE rating: Sasikiran in top 50

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 05, 2002

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Sport - Chess

FIDE rating: Sasikiran in top 50

By Our Sports Reporter

KOZHIKODE JULY 4. India's Krishnan Sasikiran has broken into the World's top 50, as the world chess governing body, FIDE, released the July international rating list on Thursday. The Chennai-based Grandmaster is ranked 40 with 2650 points, and he is the first Indian after former World champion Viswanathan Anand to touch that mark.

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) secretary P.T. Ummer Koya said it was another great achievement for Indian chess, with two Indians placed in the World top 50. "It's very gratifying to see Sasikiran's rapid rise and the AICF would be conducting a super GM tournament, specially for the further improvement of (Pendyala) Harikrishna and Sasi,'' he added.

Anand continues to be the World No. 3, with 2755 points, behind the two Russians Garry Kasparov (2838) and Vladimir Kramnik (2807). Judit Polgar is the No. 1 among women; which she has been since 1989. The Hungarian is also ranked 19th among men, with 2681 points. She is some 119 points ahead of the second ranked player, former World champion Zhu Chen of China (2562). Another former World champion, Maia Chiburdaidze of Georgia (2516) is placed third, Pia Cramling of Sweden (2508) fourth, Alisa Galiamova of Russia (2505) fifth and the current World champion Zhu Chen of China (2505) sixth.

India's Koneru Humpy, the World junior champion, is placed 14th, having dropped a few points since the last list, in which she was ranked fourth. The Vijayawada prodigy however has maintained her first ranking in the junior girls' section, ahead of Victorija Cmilyte of Lithuania (2460), and the Russians Alexandra Kosteniuk (2459) and Tatiana Kosintseva (2441). Harikrishna (2568), the other Telugu-speaking wunderkind, is placed 12th among the junior boys.

Interestingly, the World champion, Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine (2743) is the World No. 1 junior player, and is seventh among men.

Humpy continues to be the top ranked Indian woman. India's first Woman Grandmaster, S. Vijayalakshmi, is ranked second, with 2399 and she's also placed 23rd among Indian men.

The rankings:

Men: 1. Garry Kasparov (Rus) 2838, 2. Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) 2807 3. Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 2755, 4. Michael Adams (Eng) 2752, 5. Veselin Topalov (Bul) 2745, 6. Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 2743, 7. Evgeny Bareev (Rus) 2726, 8. Peter Leko (Hun) 2717, 9. Alexander Morozevich (Rus) 2716, 10. Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 2711, 11. Boris Gelfand (Isr) 2710, 12. Alexander Grischuk (Rus), 13. Alexei Shirov (Esp) 2697, 14. Peter Svidler (Rus) 2690, 15. Alexander Khalifman (Rus) 2690, 16. Vladimir Akopian (Arm) 2689, 17. Anatoly Karpov (Rus) 2687, 18. Nigel Short (Eng) 2682, 19. Judit Polgar (Hun) 2681 and 20. Ivan Sokolov (Ned) 2677.

Women: 1. Judit Polgar (Hun) 2681, 2. Xie Jun (Chn) 2562, 3. Maia Chiburdanidze (Geo) 2516, 4. Pia Cramlin (Swe) 2508, 5. Alisa Galliamova (Rus) 2505, 6. Zhu Chen (Chn) 2505, 7. Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul) 2497, 8. Almira Skripchenko-Lautier (Fra) 2497, 9. Nana Ioseliani (Geo) 2491, 10. Wang Lei (Chn) 2490, 11. Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (Rus) 2486, 12. Corina Peptan (Rom) 2477, 13. Wang Pin (Chn) 2475, 14. Koneru Humpy (Ind) 2473, 15. Xu Yuhua (Chn) 2473, 16. Sofia Polgar (Hun) 2462, 17. Viktorija Cmilyte (Ltu) 2460, 18. Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) 2459, 19. Nino Khurtsidze (Geo) 2455, 20. Peng Zhaoqin (Ned) 2454.

Junior boys: 1. Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 2743, 2. Alexander Grischuk (Rus) 2702, 3. Etienne Barcot (Fra) 2653, 4. Pons Francisco Vallejo (Esp) 2648, 5. Teimour Radjabov (Aze) 2618, 6. Lenier Dominguez (Cub) 2613, 7. Bu Xiangzhi (Chn) 2602, 8. Lazaro Bruzon (Cub) 2590, 9. Levon Aronian (Arm) 2585, 10. Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger) 2581, 11. Evgeny Alekseev (Rus) 2580, 12. Pendyala Harikrishna (Ind) 2568, 13. Zviad Izoria (Geo) 2565, 14. Baadur Jobava (Geo) 2562, 15. Pavel Eljanov (Ukr) 2561, 16. David Navara (Cze) 2559, 17. Alexander Kovchan (Ukr) 2558, 18. Artyom Timofeev (Rus) 2558, 19. Zahar Efimenko (Ukr) 2557 and 20. Shakhriyaz Mamedyarov (Aze) 2552.

Junior girls: 1. Koneru Humpy (Ind) 2473, 2. Viktorija Cmilyte (Ltu) 2460, 3. Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) 2459, 4. Tatiana Kosintseva (Rus) 2441, 5. Lilit Mkrtchian (Arm) 2422, 6. Ana Matnadze (Geo) 2415, 7. Irina Krush (USA) 2413, 8. Natalija Pogonina (Rus) 2397, 9. Nadezhda Kosintseva (Rus) 2394, 10. Ekaterina Polovnikova (Rus) 2387, 11. Zhao Xue (Chn) 2385, 12. Olga Zimina (Rus) 2372, 13. Evgenija Ovod (Rus) 2372, 14. Yelena Dembo (Hun) 2369, 15. Anita Gara (Hun) 2365, 16. Jana Jackova (Cze) 2361, 17. Wang Yu (Chn) 2355, 18. Bathuyag Mongontuul (Mgl) 2351, 19. Regina Pokorna (Svk) 2347 and 20. Irina Sudakova (Rus) 2346.

India's top 20: 1. Viswanathan Anand 2755, 2. Krishnan Sasikiran 2650, 3. Pendyala Harikrishna 2568, 4. Dibyendu Barua 2542, 5. Surya Shekhar Ganguly 2524, 6. Sandipan Chanda 2507, 7. Abhijit Kunte 2477, 8. Koneru Koneru 2473, 9. Praveen Thipsay 2460, 10. R.B. Ramesh 2456, 11. Tejas Bakre 2450, 12. Roktim Bandyopadhyay 2445, 13. Dinesh Kumar Sharma 2430, 14. P. Magesh Chandran 2428, 15. G.B. Prakash 2421, 16. Sriram Jha 2421, 17. D.V. Prasad 2420, 18. Lanka Ravi 2419, 19. S. Satyapragyan 2415, 20. M.R. Venkatesh 2408.

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