Top seeds struggle in 5th round of National U-13 Chess

New Delhi, Dec 18 (UNI) Top seeds -- defending champion Vidit Santosh Gujarathi and Prasanna Rao -- were made to struggle by their respective rivals as their matches ended in draws, while giant killer Tejas Ravichandran lost in fifth round of the Parsvnath 21st National Under-13 Chess Championship here today.

Vidit was held off to a draw by Andhra's Vishawanth Prasad.

Playing the Nimzo Indian Defence with white pieces, the top seed tried very hard to break the defence of Vishwanath.

But Vishwanath, who is rated 300 points below Vidit, proved to be a hard nut to crack. With no way of forcing a result, the two players decided to sign peace after playing just 17 moves.

The Asian under-12 bronze medalist and second seed Prasanna Rao, playing with black pieces, was forced to settle for a draw in the 28th move after failing to spot a winning continuation against lower rated opponent MG Gahan of Karnatka.

However, other seeds had much easier games. Ankit Rajpara (Gujarat) overcame fourth round hero Tejas Ravichandran (Tamil Nadu) and Pranav Shetty defeated his Maharashtra state mate Patil Pratik without much struggle.

But it was a mixed day for the host as local favourite Commonwealth Gold medalist Vaibhav Suri was humbled by Girish Koushik (Karnataka).

On the other hand, world Under-10 bronze medalist Prince Bajaj come back strongly after two draws and earned himself a full point by defeating Eshwanth Dev Kumar of Tamil Nadu.

UNI