Five players from Vijayawada will take part in two different national competitions in chess -- Under-17 and Under-7 -- which begin on May 1. All five players are getting trained at Mustabada Sports and Educational Academy and Global Chess Academy in the city.
The Under-7 nationals will be held at Pune (Maharashtra) while the Under-17 fixture will be staged at Guwahati in Assam. Potluri Supreetha qualified after her title triumph at Hyderabad in the Under-17 girls’ championship by garnering five points out of as many rounds.
“Supreetha is representing Andhra Pradesh in U-17 Nationals for the fourth time. Last year she won the Asian u-11 school girls chess championship at Delhi. In 2011 U-11 Nationals she won a silver medal and got the opportunity to represent India in Asian u-12 championship to be held in Iran from June 20 to 28,” said her coach Bobba Venkateswara Rao. Supreetha will also represent country at world youth u-12 championship to be held in Dubai in December. She will also participate in world school chess tournament to be held in Greece in the third week of May, Mr. Bobba added.
Supreetha, by virtue of finishing sixth in the National U-13 championship, has qualified for an exposure trip to Europe funded by Government of India. An NRI P. Suma presented Rs.15,000 to Supreetha to meet expenditure at Guwahati.
Giving company to Supreetha will be Aasa Deepika, who finished third and G. Sai Naga Samhitha who finished sixth in the State championship. Incidentally, the Guwahati event will be Samhitha’s first national event.
Global Chess Academy boys Abhiram Reddy and L. Sai Karthekeya will head for Pune as members of Andhra Pradesh under-7 team. “Abhiram finished second in the State championship while Karthekeya made it on donor quota,” said Sk. Khasim, secretary of the academy.
