Indians close in on leaders

 Indian International Masters Lalith Babu MR, Rathnakaran K and Shyam Nikil are snapping at the heels of the Filipino Grandmasters Oliver Barbosa and John Paul Gomez, who are leading the points table with eight and half points at the end of the penultimate round matches at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex on Sunday.

Babu, Rathnakaran and Nikil along with the untitled Chinese player Ma Qun are adrift of half point from the leaders in the Rs 15 lakh prize money tournament. 

Rathnakaran outwitted Kazakh International Master Kiril Kuderinov while Qun shocked fifth seed Russian Grandmaster Andrei Deviatkin to occupy the joint second spot with Babu and Nikil, who overcame their Indian International Master rivals Vishnu Prasanna and S Nitin. 

Important Results (Indians otherwise stated): Round 10: Oliver Barbosa (Phi, 8.5) bt Mark Paragua (Phi, 7.5); Gomez John Paul (Phi, 8.5) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (7); Andrei Deviatkin (Rus, 7) lt to Ma Qun (Chn, 8); Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus, 7.5) drew Vaibhav Suri (7.5); Kiril Kuderinov (Kaz, 7) lt to Rathnakaran K (8); Lalith Babu MR (8) bt Vishnu Prasanna (7); Nitin S (7) lt to Shyam Nikil (8); Sandipan Chanda (7) drew Neelotpal Das (7); Swapnil Dhopade (6.5) lt to Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr, 7.5); Debashis Das (7) drew Mikhailo Oleksienko (Ukr, 7);  Abhijit Kunte (7.5) bt Varughese Koshy (6.5); Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (7.5) bt Saptarshi Roy (6.5); Hemant Sharma (7) drew Ashwin Jayaram (6.5); Mikhail Ulibin (Rus, 7) bt Praveen Kumar C (6)