Young Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa defeated China’s Wei Yi 2.5-1.5 to book a spot in the semifinals of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Chessable Masters 2022 online tournament on Monday.
In the quarterfinals against Yi late on Monday, the 16-year-old Indian star opened with a win with black pieces in 90 moves. He built on that fine start to take the second game of the four-game match to go 2-0 up. Praggnanandhaa’s counterpart bounced back to claim the third game of the series to reduce the margin.A draw in the fourth was enough for the Indian Grand Master to seal a spot in the semifinals.
Praggnanandhaa will face off with Anish Giri (the Netherlands) in the semifinals. Whereas World No.1 Magnus Carlsen will take on China’s Ding Liren in the other semifinal clash, the world no 1 was defeated by Praggnanandhaa in the preliminary phase in the sixth round.
Giri and Carlsen scored comfortable 2.5-0.5 wins over Aryan Tori (Norway) and David Anton Gujjaro (Spain), while Liren defeated Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2.5-1.5 in the quarterfinals. P Harikrishna and Gujrathi, the two other Indians in the 16-player field finished outside the top 8 and failed to get to the knockout bracket.
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