Nihal Sarin is back with bang after first round draw

Al Ain (UAE), May 8 (PTI) Top seeded Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin came back with a bang, defeating Nikita Matinian of Russia in the second round of the Asian Individual Chess Championship here on Thursday.

On a day when fourth seeded Murali Karthikeyan scored his second victory in as many days at the expense of Lou Yipping of Philippines, highly regarded Grandmaster S L Narayanan saw his castle coming to crashes as he lost to Atakhan Albin of Uzbekistan.

It was another tough day for the higher seed in the premier Asian championship as many of the fancied players had to go through tough struggle.

Meanwhile, the Indian young brigade did pretty well, while at the same time Abhijeet Gupta scored his first victory in the event defeating compatriot K Senthil Maren.

In the women's section, Vantika Agrawal, the flag bearer, carried on her performance in the opener to beat Assel Serikbay and reached the maximum score of two points.

The USD 80000 championship is played as part of the World Championship cycle wherein the top players will qualify for the World Chess Cup to be held later this year.

Important results after round 2: A R Ilamparthi (2) beat Amin Tabatabaei (IRI, 1); Lou Yiping (PHI, 1) lost to Murali Karthikeyan (2): Grigory Fedorov lost to Prraneeth Vuppala (2); Nihal Sarin (1.5) beat Nikita Matinian (0.5); S L Narayanan (0.5) lost to Atakhan Abtin (UZB, 1.5); Abhijeet Gupta beat K Senthil Maran (0.5); Aditya, Mittal (1.5) beat Bai Adelard; SiddharthJagadeesh (1.5) beat Rashid Husain Alhammadi ; Mayank Chakraborty (1,5) beat Abuazizah, Raji (0.5); V Pranav (1) beat Sakline Mostafa Sajid (0).

Women: Yana Zhapova (RUS) lost to Valentina Gunina (FID, 2); Liya Kurmangaliyeva (KHZ, 1,5) drew with Song Yuxin (CHN, 1.5); Vantika Agrawal (2) beat Assel Serikbay (KHZ, 1); Zarina Nurgaliyeva (KHZ) beat Mungutntuul Batkhuyag (MGL, 1); Potapova Margarita (RUS) lost to Meruert Kamalidenova KHZ, 2); Sakshi Chitlange lost to Afruza Khamdamova (UZB, 2); Rakshitta Ravi (2) beat Arshiya Das (1); Priyanka Nutakki (2) beat Rouda Essa Alserkal (UAE, 1). PTI Cor SSC SSC SSC