Abhijeet Gupta among leaders, setback for Mary Ann Gomes

New Delhi, Aug 25 (UNI) Grandmaster norm holder Abhijeet Gupta (BP) continued with his winning ways and downed Asian Under-14 champion S Nitin (Tamil Nadu) in the third round of the Parsvnath 35 th National Junior Chess championship here today.

Double International Master norm holder G N Gopal(Kerala) was held to a draw by Shreyans Jain Dhaklia(Chattisgarh) in what was a minor flutter of the third round.

In the 21st edition of girls' championship being played simultaneously, International Women Master and second seed Kruttika Nadig maintained a clean slate with her third convincing victory in the event. On the receiving end was P Lakshmi Sahiti who could not match the endgame abilities of her more famous rival.

In the second round played late last evening one major upset was recorded in each section. The biggest gainer was P K Jayashree (Tamil Nadu) who defeated top seed Mary Ann Gomes (Bengal) in a scintillating affair.

In the second round of boys section, Fenil Shah of Gujrat recorded a big result accounting for double IM norm holder S P Sethuraman(Tamil Nadu). Shah in fact continued with his dream run into the third round as well as he held Soumitra Majumdar (Maharashtra) to an easy draw.

After three rounds as many as 9 players emerged as joint leaders with a cent percent score in the open section. They are IM norm holder G Rohit, Women Grandmaster D Harika, Akshat Khamparia, Bitan Banerjee, B Adhiban, Aswin Jayaram, R Premnath, Gurpreet Singh Maras and Abhijeet Gupta.

In the girls' championship there are 8 leaders with an absolute score Saheli Nath, Mahima Rajmohan, Soumya Swaminathan, P K Jayashree, R Preethi, P Uthra, Supriya Maji and Kruttika Nadig.

UNI HSB DH RK1950