Aronyak upsets GM Bartel; Ganguly, Sadhwani advance

Panaji, Nov 2 (PTI) The experienced GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Raunak Sadhwani and Karthik Venkatraman scored comfortable victories to advance to the second round of the FIDE World Cup 2025 here on Sunday.

IM Aronyak Ghosh defeated GM Mateusz Bartel of Poland.

The 42-year-old Ganguly, playing with black pieces, knew that Ahmad Ahmadzada had to take risks to draw level after losing the opening game and the Indian took control of the match by attacking from his opponent’s king side and forced him to resign after just 28 moves.

He will face French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France.

Karthik, who had drawn his opening game against GM Roberto Garia Pantoja on Saturday, forced his opponent to resign after 39 moves to set up a second round clash against compatriot GM Aravindh Chithambaram VR.

Also advancing to the next round was Sadhwani. The 19-year-old from Nagpur had managed to draw the opening game against FM Daniel Barrish of South Africa despite making errors. On Sunday, he made no mistakes to clinch a win with black pieces in 39 moves.

While Ganguly, Sadhwani and Karthik won, 19-year-old Pranesh did not take any unnecessary risk against Kazakhstan’s Satbek Akhmedinov and split the point after 36 moves in a rook-pawn end game.

The FIDE World Cup 2025 is played as a single-elimination knock-out tournament with 206 players from 82 countries vying for the coveted Viswanathan Anand Cup, named after the Indian legend.

Meanwhile, GM Aronyak, who lost the first game with black pieces against Bartel, came up with a solid middle game to take the upper hand and then made the advantage count to win the game in 41 moves to keep his campaign alive.

Four other Indian players, Raja Rithvik R, Diptayan Ghosh, Lalit Babu MR and Narayanan SL will now be taking the rapid route to make it to the next round after they drew their respective games.

Rithvik was held to a draw by Kazakhstan’s Kazybek Nogerbek in 30 moves in the second game on Sunday while Diptayan Ghosh, playing white, could not find a way past China’s GM Peng Xiongjian after 39 moves.

Meanwhile, wild card entrant Divya Deshmukh’s campaign came to an end in the first round after she went down 0:2 against Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis.

Having lost the opening game with white pieces, the 19-year-old women’s world cup champion needed a win to stay alive on Sunday.

She tried her best to get past the format of Stamatis but ultimately had to accept defeat in a marathon 73-move game with her opponent’s additional pawn in the endgame making the difference.

Indian results (Game 2-Round 1)GM Pranav V bt Ala Eddine Boulrens (Alg) 2:0GM Raunak Sadhwani bt FM Daniel Barrish (RSA) 1.5:0.5GM Karthik Venkataraman bt GM Roberto Garcia Pantoja (Cub) 1.5:0.5GM Diptayan Ghosh drew with GM Peng Xiongjian (CHN) 1:1GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly bt GM Ahmad Ahmadzada (AZE) 2:0GM Iniyan Pa bt GM Dylan Berdayes (Cub) 1.5:0.5GM Raja Rithvik R drew with Kazybek Nogerbek (Kaz) 1:1GM Lalit Babu MR drew with GM Max Warmerdam (Ned) 1:1GM Narayanan SL drew with IM Steven Rojas (Per) 1:1IM Himal Gusain lost to GM Andy Woodward (USA) bt 0:2IM Harshavardhan GB lost to GM Mustafa Yilmaz (Tur) 0.5:1.5IM Neelash Saha lost to GM Georg Meier (Uru) 0.5:1.5GM Leon Luke Mendonca lost to IM Shixu B Wang (Chn) 0.5:1.5GM Divya Deshmukh lost to GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (Gre) 0:2. PTI AT KHS