With this victory, State silver medallist Murali took his overall tally to six points and now leads Maharastra’s Shaikh Nubairshah and Delhi’s Debankan Dhara by 0.5 points.
In the girls’ section, Tamil Nadu’s Mahalakshmi M bounced back from a round five loss to move into joint lead at six points along with Goa’s Ivana Maria Furtado and Orissa’s Sunyasakta Satpathy.
Palying with black pieces, Bharadwaj opted for the Sicilian defence against Murali but the latter was too good posting victory in 67 moves from a rook ending.
Important results (round VII): Boys: Karthikeyan Murali (TN, 6.5) bt Akshay Bharadwaj (Kar, 5); Sidhant Mohapatra (Ori, 5.5) drew with RV Adith (TN, 5.5); Shaikh Nubairshah (Mah, 6) bt Rakesh Kumar Jena (Ori, 5); Debankan Dhara (WB, 6) bt Athul Krishna S (Ker, 5); Naik Rishubh Naresh (Goa, 5.5) drew Anshuman K (TN, 5.5); Aravindh Chithambaram VR (TN, 5) lt to Ghosh Diptayan (WB, 5.5); Badrinath S (Pud, 5) drew Arjun Bharat (Kar, 5); Sai Agni Jeevitesh J (AP, 4.5) lt to Narayanan SL (Ker, 5.5); Sai Vishwesh C (TN, 4) lt to Satvik M (Kar, 5); Jeet Jain (Guj, 4.5) drew Varma Shabdhik (Kar, 4.5).
Girls: Sunyasakta Satpathy (Ori, 6) bt Monnisha GK (TN, 5.5); Ivana Maria Furtado (Goa, 6) bt Divya Garg (Mah, 5); Mahalakshmi M (TN, 6) bt Varsha CK (TN, 5); Akankhya Kabi (Ori, 5.5) bt Dhanashree Pandit (Mah, 5); Meghna CH (Ker, 4.5) lt to Shoumi Mukerjee (WB, 5.5); Varshini V (TN, 5.5) drew Megha Gupta (Guj, 5.5); Bakshi Rutuja (Mah, 5) bt Smaraki Mohanty (Ori, 4); Dharani Sree R (TN, 4.5) drew Savant Riya (Goa, 4.5); Gauri Keshav Hadkonkar (Goa, 4) lt to Priyanka S (AP, 5); Ashwini U (TN, 5) bt Adyasha Pattnaik (Ori, 4); Kratica Shekhwat (Raj, 4) lt to Andria L D’souza (Kar, 5); Kesshni Bhasiin (Del, 4) lt to Shiny Das (Tri, 5); Salini R (AP, 5) bt Shubhani Kapoor (Raj, 4); Rakshana K (TN, 5) bt Manasvini Murali (TN, 3.5); Priyamvada Karmcheti (AP, 3.5) lt to Tejaswini Sagar (Mah, 4.5).
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