Pre-match favourites Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi took identical routes to get past Fabiano Caruana and Vladislav Artemiev on their way to the semifinals of the $150,000 Chessable Masters late on Saturday.
On Sunday, in the opening game of the second set of the remaining two quarterfinals, Ding Liren missed a possible win over Hikaru Nakamura before drawing in 49 moves. A little earlier, Anish Giri and Alexander Grischuk signed peace in 46 moves.
Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi recorded their second successive 2.5-0.5 victories over their rivals to clinch the best-of-three match series 2-0. After signing peace in the opening games, they won the next two.
On Thursday, too, they proved their superiority with a rapid game to spare.
Quarterfinal results (set two, game one):
Hikaru Nakamura (USA) drew with Ding Liren (Chn); Anish Giri (Ned) drew with Alexander Grischuk (Rus).
On Saturday: Magnus Carlsen (Nor) bt Fabiano Caruana (USA) 2.5-0.5; Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus) bt Vladislav Artemiev (Rus) 2.5-0.5.
