The Indian men’s and women’s scored unimpressive victories over their counterparts from lowly-rated Egypt in the fifth round of the World team chess championship here on Wednesday.
India, an overwhelming rating-favourite on every board in both sections against Egypt, faced awe-inspiring resistance on a day when it was expected to win easily.
The victories helped India occupy the third place in the women’s section and fifth in the open category.
For the record, India won 2.5-1.5 in the open section where only B. Adhiban (rated 2670) overpowered Adham Fawzy (2418) — his third straight win — before the other three boards ended in draws. Vidit Gujarathi (2692) could not get past Abdelrahman Hesham (2372), M. Karthikeyan (2582) struggled to draw against Imed Abdelnabbi (2428) and Parimarjan Negi (2670) was relieved with a draw after struggling with the white pieces against Farahat Ali (2402).
Though the women won 3-1, the top-board defeat of D. Harika to Wafa Shrook proved the biggest upset of the competition.
Wafa, rated a modest 2141 — against Harika’s 2535 — dominated the 59-move game while the Indian stared at defeat for the better part of the contest.
On the other three boards, Indians won as anticipated with Tania Sachdev, Eesha Karavade and S. Vijayalakshmi posting expected victories.
The results (fifth round): Open: Egypt (0) lost to India (6) 1.5-2.5 (Hesham Abdelrahman drew with Vidit Gujrathi; Adham Fawzy lost to B. Adhiban; Imed Abdelnabbi drew with M. Karthikeyan; Farahat Ali drew with Parimarjan Negi).
Russia (9) bt Norway (2) 3-1; Turkey (7) drew with China (8) 2-2; Ukraine (4) lost to Poland (8) 1-3; USA (4) drew with Belarus (2) 2-2.
Women: Egypt (0) lost to India (7) 1-3 (Wafa Shrook bt D. Harika; Ayah Moaataz lost to Tania Sachdev; Eman Elansary lost to Eesha Karavade; Tasneem Ehab lost to S. Vijayalakshmi). Russia (8) drew with USA (4) 2-2; Poland (5) drew with Ukraine (8) 2-2; China (6) bt Georgia (4) 4-0; Vietnam (4) bt Azerbaijan (4) 2.5-1.5.
