CHENNAI: Divya Deshmukh staged an epic come-from-behind win to upstage tournament leader Anna Muzychuk in the eighth round of the women's Candidates on Tuesday. Deshmukh, losing for much of the game, just wanted to fight; something she has already showed an appetite for in Cyprus over the previous seven rounds.
The 20-year-old, who won the women's World Cup last year to qualify for this meet, was, at one point of time, holding her face in her hands as the position she had was precarious. Her opening was a disaster. For a very long time, she was a few moves from losing completely. But in a queen endgame, the Ukrainian made a couple of inaccuracies as she kept over-extending in a dead draw position as she didn't want to make peace with the fact that she had let a clear advantage slip.
With Deshmukh up a pawn in the endgame and totally winning, the Ukrainian opted to fight on when she was could have resigned on the spot. In the end, she ran out of time before shaking hands.
The Indian's win, coupled with R Vaishali's draw against Bibisara Assaubayeva, meant that as many as five women are tied at 4.5 points for first place, including both Deshmukh and Vaishali. And from an Indian perspective, Wednesday is going to be a must-not-miss day as both the Indians face each other. The stakes cannot be any more higher.
But, on the Open side, R Praggnanandhaa's already slim chances of winning the tournament suffered a beating as he was demolished by Anish Giri. But Javokhir Sindarov's tightened his stranglehold on the leaderboard as Fabiano Caruana lost to Hikaru Nakamura.
Results: Open: Javokhir Sindarov drew with Andrey Esipenko, Anish Giri bt R Praggnanandhaa, Wei Yi drew with Matthias Bluebaum, Hikaru Nakamura bt Fabiano Caruana.
Women: Divya Deshmukh bt Anna Muzychuk, Zhu Jiner bt Tan Zhongyi, Kateryna Lagno bt Aleksandra Goryachkina, R Vaishali drew with Bibisara Assaubayeva.