Top seed West Bengal’s Diptayan Ghosh scored a convincing win while Monnisha G K of Tamil Nadu produced an upset in the tenth round and moved closer to the title in the boys’ and girls’ sections respectively on the penultimate day of the National under-9 chess championship at the St Joseph’s PU College here on Thursday.

Ghosh kept his unbeaten record in the championship to crush Adarsh Yeshwant of Tamil Nadu in 39 moves. The Bengal boy opting for Queen Pawn opening warded off initial rustiness and worked his way to a better position after 28 moves. And once Yeshwant lost his queen, it was just completion of formalities for the top seed Bengali who emerged as the sole leader with nine points.

However, final round of battle on the morrow in the top board creates huge interest when Ghosh takes on the second seed Mohapatra Sidhant of Orissa, lying second with 8.5 points.

Sidhant ended the title hopes of Ashwath P Hari. The game -- played in Scotch opening format -- lasted 58 moves and three hours. 

Meanwhile, overnight leader Monnisha stunned top seed Sweety Patel of Gujarat (7.5) to stay at the top of the table with 8.5 points in the girls section. Monnisha is closely followed by her state-mate Mahalakshmi M, Shoumi Mukherjee of West Bengal and Sunyasakta Satpathy of Orissa, having eight points each.

Results (round ten):

Boys: Diptayan Ghosh (WB, 9) bt Adharsh P Yeshwanth (TN, 7.5); Aswath P Hari (TN, 7.5) lt Mohapatra Sidhant (Ori, 8.5); Mohineesh C H (AP, 8) bt Athul Krishna S (Ker, 7); Harikrishnan Mohanan (Goa, 7.5) drew with Satvik M (Kar, 7.5); Hetul Shah (Guj, 7.5) drew with Arjun Bharat (Kar, 7.5); Saradhara Preet (Guj, 8) bt Manu M (Ker, 7); Akshay Bharadwaj (Kar, 6.5) lt to Karthikeyan M (TN, 7.5); Hemanth Kumar P (AP, 6.5) lt to Maniar Tirth (Guj, 7.5); Harshal Shahi (Del, 6.5) lt to Samyak Baid (Mah, 7.5); G V Revanth Reddy (AP, 7.5) bt Shreyas Kamath M (Mah, 6.5).

Girls: Monnisha G K (TN, 8.5) bt Sweety Patel (Guj, 7.5); Mahalakshmi M (TN, 8) bt Abirami R (TN, 7); Bakshi Rutuja (Mah, 6.5) lt to Shoumi Mukherjee (WB, 8); Sunyasakta Satpathy (Ori, 8) bt Megha Gupta (Guj, 6.5); Ashwini U (TN, 6.5) drew with Ivana Maria Furtado (Goa, 7); Mahika Mor (Mah, 6) lt to Meghna C H (Ker, 7); Akankhya Kabi (Ori, 7) bt Meghana T C (Kar, 6); Savant Riya (Goa, 7) bt Andrea D’Souza (Kar, 6); Preethy P (Pon, 6.5) drew with Dharani Sree R (6.5); Divya Garg (Mah, 7) bt Nandhini T R (TN, 6).