D Harika and Koneru Humpy came up with fine individual performances to win silver and a bronze, respectively, even as the Indian eves finished fourth in the women’s world team chess championship here.
Harika’s silver and Humpy’s bronze though were a big consolation for the team, overall it was a disappointing show by the Indian girls given the missed opportunities. The medal for the team was always within reach, but it failed to finish off well.
Considering that the Indian team entered the tournament as a wild card, a fourth-place finish can be justified as a pretty decent show. However, the medal was within the grasp as the team finished just one point shy of China, which bagged the bronze.
China was beaten in the final round by Georgia, who finished the event with an impressive 17 points to clinch the gold medal. Georgia drew just one and won the remaining eight matches in this round-robin contest.
Russia claimed the silver medal after defeating United States in the final round. They garnered 15 points in all.
In the final game, Harika made mincemeat of Lilit Galojan, who played black. The only time Harika looked surprised was when Lilit found an apparently miraculous defense against the onslaught, but on a careful inspection, the Indian girl just found the winning moves with a minute to spare on her clock.
Humpy was as usual clinical but a bit unlucky not to pluck the silver as she ran out of time in a balanced middle game.
On the last two boards, Padmini Rout and Soumya Swaminathan lived up to the expectations to win their respective games.
Results final round: Indian (10) beat Armenia (8) 3-1 (Lilit Mkrtchina beat Koneru Humpy; D Harika beat Lilit Galojan; Maria Kursova lost to Padmini Rout; Soumya Swaminathan beat Susanna Gaboyan); China (11) lost to Georgia (17) 1.5-2.5; Kazakhstan (9) drew with Poland (6) 2-2; Russian (15) beat USA (5) 3.5-0.5; Ukraine (10) beat Egypt (0) 3.5-0.5.
