World champion Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Boris Gelfand of Israel in the fourth round of the Tal Memorial chess tournament.
Competing after a rest day, Anand got something to play for but his previous world championship challenger was up to the task in defense and the draw was a just result.
Anand elevated himself to joint fourth in the standings with two points out of a possible four. Hikaru Nakamura of the United States continued with his dominating form and outplayed Fabiano Caruana of Italy to jump into the sole lead on three points. It was Nakamura’s third straight victory after a first round loss against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan.
Mamedyarov played out a draw with Sergey Karjakin of Russia to take his tally to 2.5 points. The Azeri was second along with Gelfand on 2.5 points.
Anand shared fourth spot with Caruana, world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Dmiutry Andreikin of Russia.
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Divij, raja enter rd 2 of qualifiers
London, June 18: Divij Sharan and Purav Raja registered a straight-sets win in the opening round of the Wimbledon qualifiers on Monday night.
The Indian pair defeated Flavio Cipolla of Italy and American Wayne Odesnik 6-2, 6-4. The Indians broke Odesnik’s serve in the very first game. They again broke him in the fifth and went on to win the set.
In the second set, Divij and Raja broke Cipolla’s serve at two all and that lead stayed with them, as they wrapped up the match comfortably.
They next play Andreas Haider-Maurer of Austria and Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic. — PTI