CHENNAI: Three players, GM Fedorov of Belarus, IM Asylbek of Kyrgyzstan and S Rohit of India are leading with one point each at the end of the first round of the 8th edition of the TN IM Norm Closed Circuit chess tournament being played at Sri Vasavi College, Erode. GM Alexei Fedorov of Belarus beat Akshith Kumar of India in 54 moves from the white side Vienna game. Fedorov, eyeing his 3rd consecutive title, won a pawn on the 33rd move and combined his Queen and rook to force his opponent’s resignation. Asylbek beat GM Evgeniy Podolchenko of Belarus in 51 moves. The first game to finish on the day was between two Indians Rohit and Md Imran. Rohit beat his opponent in 28 moves.
Abhinav stars in TN win
Abhinav Kannan’s unbeaten 82 paved the way for Tamil Nadu to beat Bengal by nine wickets in the Cooch Behar Trophy U-19 Elite B Group league round match played at Bengal Cricket Academy grounds, Kalyani.
Earlier, Bengal were all out for just 140 in their second essay as P Vignesh (3/59), B Sachin 3/19 and VS Karthick Manikandan (3/10) took nine wickets among themselves to put Tamil Nadu on the path of victory. Brief scores: Bengal 246 and 140 in 48.5 ovs (Rohit Pradhan 55; P Vignesh 3/59, B Sachin 3/19, VS Karthick Manikandan 3/10) lost to Tamil Nadu 272 in 98.2 ovs (Karthick Manikandan 61, B Sai Karthick 67 n.o.; Priyanshu Patel 4/74, Yudhajit Guha 4/76) and 115/1 in 20 ovs (Abhinav Kannan 82 n.o).
Girish shines
RSPB’s Girish, who hails from Tamil Nadu, beat Sumer Mago of Maharashtra 4-2 (44-41, 21-37, 51-12, 35-55, 42-01, 41-16.) in the men’s 6-Red snooker qualifying of the 90th National Billiards and Snooker Championships held at the Nehru Indoor Stadium on Sunday. Elsewhere, Parthiba Rajendran, the reigning Tamil Nadu 15-Red snooker champion, beat PuranKun (Puducherry) 4-0, while his statemate Syed Sikkander edged out Delhi’s Vishnu Prakash 4-3.