Tamil Nadu’s M. Mahalakshmi upstaged top seed Pratyusha Bodda in 39 moves to join teammate Michelle Catherina in the lead at four points after as many rounds of the National junior (under-19) girls’ chess championship here on Friday.
In the open section, former champion Aravindh Chithambaram (Tamil Nadu) and Prasanna Rao (Maharashtra) maintained their all-win record to share the lead at four points.
The results: Open: Fourth round: Prasanna Rao (Mah, 4) bt N.R. Visakh (TN, 3); Aravindh Chithambaram (TN, 4) bt Ankit Gajwa (MP, 3); Mithil Ajgaonkar (Mah, 3.5) drew with P. Lokesh (TN, 3.5); Harsha Bharathakoli (AP, 3.5) drew with Saumil Padhya (Mah, 3.5); Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad (AP, 2.5) lost to Sayantan Das (Ben, 3.5); Pratik Patil (Mah, 3.5) bt Yogesh Gautam (Har, 2.5); Prince Bajaj (Del, 2.5) lost to Krishna Teja (AP, 2.5); G. Jaswant (TN, 3.5) bt Navalgund Niranjan (TN, 2.5); Aishwin Daniel (MP, 2.5) lost to Akash Iyer (TN, 3.5); Arjun Satheesh (Ker, 2) lost to S.L. Narayanan (Ker, 3).
Third round: Narayan lost to Ajgaonkar; Chandresish Majumdar (Ben, 2) lost to Prasanna; Sayantan drew with Teja; Mohammad Ashraf (Odi, 2) lost to Chithambaram; Gajwa bt Antonio Viani D’cunha (Kar, 2); Lokesh bt D. Yashas (Kar, 2); Saumil bt J. Yohan (Ker, 2); Yogesh drew with Bajaj.
Girls:
Fourth round: J. Saranya (TN, 3.5) drew with Ivana Furtado (Goa, 3.5); P. Michelle Catherina (TN, 4) bt G.K. Monnisha (TN, 3); M. Mahalakshmi (TN, 4) bt Pratyusha Bodda (2.5); Shweta Gole (Mah, 2.5) lost to G. Lasya (3.5); P. Bala Kannama (TN, 3.5) bt Anigani Kavya (AP, 2.5); Akshaya Nandakumar (TN, 2) lost to Rucha Pujari (Mah, 3); V. Priya (AP, 2) lost to P.V. Nandhidhaa (TN, 3); Smaraki Mohanty (Odi, 2) lost to Madhurima Shekhar (Del, 3); Parnali Dharia (Mah, 3) bt Hema Priya (TN, 2); Hinduja Reddy (AP, 2.5) drew with N.L.V. Anusha (AP, 2.5).
Third round: Lasya drew with Pratusha; Madhurima lost to Saranya; V. Varshini (TN, 2) lost to Michelle; Ivana bt Parnali; Sunyasakta Satpathy (Odi, 2) lost to Mahalakshmi; Monnisha bt Anjana Krishna (Ker, 2); Nandhidhaa drew with Kavya; Srijaa Seshadri (TN, 1.5) lost to Gole; S.L. Parvathy (Ker, 1.5) lost to Kannamma; Nandhini Saripalli (Goa, 2) drew with Smaraki.
