India scrapes past Qatar 2-1, chase the Chess gold

Doha, Dec 8 (UNI) K Sasikiran made the right moves in the decider as India edged out hosts Qatar 2-1 in the third round of the mixed team's classical swiss chess competition of the 15th Asian Games here today.

India were held to a 1-1 draw by the hosts and pitted against GM Mohammed Al Medaihki, Sasikiran had his job cut out. The Indian kept his cool and remained composed in the hour of crisis before eventually dealing the knock-out blow.

Earlier, Grandmaster P Harikrishna gave India the perfect start, by crashing through International Master Mohammed Al Sayed's defence to put the side 1-0 up.

The hosts, however, hit back through their Chinese-born Grandmaster Zhu Chen, who managed to tame Koneru Humpy. In a tactical edge-of-the-seat thriller, the Indian GM, who had won the women's rapid swiss Gold, could not sustain the onslaught from her rival and surrendered.

This was Koneru's first defeat on the mixed team event. For Shanghai-born Chen, this was a sweet revenge against the Indian, who had beaten her in the fifth round of the women's rapid swiss event.

Chen is married to Mohamad Al Medaihki.

In the earlier rounds, India had beaten Mongolia 2.5-.5 and blanked Turkmenistan 3-0.

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