Indian Grand Master Harika Dronavalli, the lone Indian chess player at the prestigious 14th Anatoly Karpov Rapid International Chess Tournament put up a spirited performance but could not get the desired results as she drew one and lost one on day two, here on Saturday.
The World No.5 Harika, who started the day placed fifth on the leaderboard by the virtue of her day one performance, began well against the local favourite and Grand Master Cornette Matthieu. Playing in the third game of the tournament, she took to a defensive strategy and held off a strong challenge from the higher ranked Matthieu with an ELO rating of 2599 to draw the tie.
With a fairly good start to the day, the Indian took on the Spanish Grand Master Muzychuk Anna in her fourth game. She started on a good note; however few inaccurate moves saw the Spaniard with an ELO rating of 2561 take advantage in the due course. Harika could not keep up with the pace of her opponent and she finally had to throw in the towel.
Harika accepted her day’s result gracefully pointing out that it was an off day for her and she will for sure take a lot of positives from her exploits on the day. “I gave my best but things did not go according to the plan and I had to end the day without a win,” the Hyderabadi lass said. “I will try and get back to the winning way in the subsequent rounds and with many more games to go in the tournament, I am hopeful of bouncing back and qualify for the knockout stages,’ she added.
Harika in her next couples of games on day three will now take on the French Grandmaster duo of Edouard Romain and Sebag Marie.