Tania joins leaders after 2nd round

Woman Grandmaster Tania Sachdev emerged amongst 10-leaders with a finely crafted victory over Atousa Pourkashiyan of Iran in the second round of the World Junior Girls chess championship in Istanbul.

On a mixed day for Indians in the biggest juniors event, International Master-to-be Parimarjan Negi impressed once again in the boys' section by holding sixth seed Grandmaster Wang Yue of China to a creditable draw.

Eleven players in the boys' category and 10 girls emerged as joint leaders and making a strong point was former champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan who disposed the challenge of Levon Babujian of Armenia with ease in the boys' section.

Among the Indian boys in the fray, IM S Poobesh Anand made his presence felt after an exciting draw with Grandmaster-in-waiting Erwin Lami of the Netherlands.

Also coming out good were National Junior champion G N Gopal and Akshath Khamparia who both opened their accounts with commendable victories over Faut Uzun of Turkey and South African De Bruyn Leon.

However, highest rated Indian here, Deep Sen Gupta, who had made his maiden GM norm in the same event last year, failed to use his white pieces to any effect and was beaten by GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia. Also ending on the losing side was G Rohit who was outdone by Bosnian Borki Predojevic.

Among the girls, last year's bronze medallist Eesha Karavade suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Ciobanu Camelia of Romania but country's best bet D Harika came out good to register her first victory against Evgenia Meshcheriakova of Russia.