Fifth seed Harikrishna was outdone in a Slav Exchange game in which China’s Lou Yiping remained calm and went for the exchange variation. Harikrishna could have equalised but went for an erroneous plan in a complicated position and ended up on the losing side. In the women’s section, third seed Tania Sachdev also crashed to a defeat against lower ranked Chinese Jue Wang.

Tania misplayed a clear better position out of a closed Ruy Lopez before blundering in the endgame.