Indian Grand Master Harika Dronavalli finished her campaign at the Isle of Man International Tournament with a win against German IM Evgeny Degtiarev, late here on Sunday night.
The World No. 10 Indian, playing with white pieces, was adamant on finishing with a win and started the game on a dominating note as she mounted pressure on her opponent right from the word go.
“I started off well and got a better position in the initial phases and easily converted that into a win,” the lass from Guntur said after her 41-move game.
Harika had started her campaign with a win and against England’s Akito Oyama and carried forward the momentum into the next round as she beat German FM Babar and registered two consecutive wins, but it was the fourth and the fifth round where she dropped points and lost to French GM Fressinet and Hungarian WGM Anna Rudolf which resulted in her slump in the points table.
“The whole tournament has been a great experience but went a bit wrong due to a couple of losses and after that I tried hard to come back and gain a higher position in the standings but couldn’t do so. There were extremely good players in tournament which made it very tough,” she conceded after the tournament culminated.
After fighting it out for nine gruesome rounds, Harika amassed a total of five points as she won four, lost three and drew two to finish as she was seeded at the start of the tournament, 56th.
The highly competitive tournament was won by the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, whereas India’s most reputed player Vishwanathan Anand finished in second place with just half a point separating both the players.