Gopal in joint third spot

 The victory, coming with black pieces, put Gopal in a good position as the Indian will take on Salome Melia of Georgia in the final round with white pieces.

Meanwhile, it continued to be a two-way race for the title as top seeded Grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk beat young GM Fabianoa Caruana of Italy to remain at the helm with eight points out of a possible nine.

Ivanchuk continued to enjoy a half point lead over England’s Nigel Short, who also defeated Victor Mikhalevsky of Israel.

Besides Gopal in 10-way tie for the third spot on 6.5 points, Harikrishna is in contention for a podium finish. In the ninth round game, Harikrishna was held to a draw by Melia.

Important results (round IX, Indians unless stated otherwise): Fabiano Caruana (6) lt to Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 8); Nigel Short (Eng, 7.5) bt Victor Mikhalevski (Isr, 6.5); Viktor Erdos (Hun, 6.5) drew Viktor Bologan (6.5); Salome Melia (Geo, 6.5) drew P Harikrishna (6.5); Daniel Fridman (Ger, 6.5) drew Krishnan Sasikiran (6); Michael Adams (Eng, 6) drew Damien Lemos (Arg, 6); Pablo Lafuente (Arg, 6) drew Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Rou, 6); Michael Roiz (Isr, 6.5) bt Le Roux Jean-Pierre (Fra, 5.5); Romain Edouard (Fra, 6.5) bt Ray Robson (US, 5.5); Jon Speelman (Eng, 5.5) lt to GN Gopal (6.5); Girogi Kacheishvili (Geo, 6) drew D Harika (6); Deep Sengupta (6) drew Vyacheslav Ikonnikov (Rus, 6); Alexis Cabrera (Esp, 6) bt Sandipan Chanda (5); Arghyadip Das (6) bt Ruben Felgaer (Arg, 6); Garcia Jimenez Francisco Javie (Esp, 4.5) lt to Vaibhav Suri (5.5); Eesha Karavade (5) bt Thomas Becker (Ger, 4).