P. Harikrishna was required to dig deep into his reserves to hold Spain’s David Anton Guijar in 45 moves in the ninth round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, on Tuesday.
With 4.5 points, Harikrishna shares the seventh spot with former leader Nils Grandelius, who lost to Magnus Carlsen.
Overnight leader and Iranian prodigy Alireza Firouzja drew with fellow-teenager Russia’s Andrey Esipenko to reach six points.
Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri won their games to share the lead with Firouzja.
With four rounds to go, Carlsen is one-point off the leaders.
Ninth-round results:
David Anton Guijar (Esp, 3.5) drew with P. Harikrishna (4.5); Alireza Firouzja (FIDE, 6) drew with Andrey Esipenko (Rus, 5.5); Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 5) bt Nils Grandelius (Swe, 4.5).
Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol, 3.5) lost to Fabiano Caruana (USA, 6); Anish Giri (Ned, 6) bt Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra, 3); Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 5.5) drew with Alexander Donchenko (Ger, 3); Aryan Tari (Nor, 3.5) drew with Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 3.5) .
