Tata Steel Masters: Praggnanandhaa crushes Mendonca to jump into sole lead

Wijk Aan Zee (The Netherlands): Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa crashed through the defences of fellow Indian Leon Luke Mendonca to jump into sole lead after the fourth round of the Tata Steel Masters chess tournament here.

Praggnanandhaa started off with an innocuous Ruy Lopez closed but found his chances in the middle game when Mendonca, clearly being the rookie here, could not handle the pressure of another high-profile game.

It was another day when Praggnanandhaa found the fire to score his third win on the trot after 46 moves.

Interestingly, all of Praggnanandhaa's victories have come at the expense of the Indians so far in the tournament, with the GM now looking forward to the clash against world champion D Gukesh.

With his third win, the Chennai-based player has stamped his authority ahead of the first rest day of the long and gruelling tournament that lasts till 13 rounds with three rest days thrown in.

Recently-crowned world champion D Gukesh played true to his instinct but could not get past Alexey Sarana, who now plays for Serbia instead of Russia. The Indian, playing with black pieces, tried every trick under the sun but Sarana stuck to the basics to not force anything which could be fatal.

The game remained level for a long time and eventually both players got a new queen on the board with Sarana only having the final say with an extra Bishop. With no pawns left, the result was anyone's guess and the game ended in a draw soon after.

P Harikrishna dumped Max Warmerdam of Holland to stake his claim in the tournament. The Indian was brought in after Vidit Gujrathi withdrew at the last moment. Harikrishna's score of 2.5 points from four games more than justifies his presence here.

It was a Catalan opening and Warmerdam did not know what hit him as he found all the white pieces around his king despite the trade of queens earlier in the opening. Harikrishna made short work of his opponent, winning in a mere 23 moves.

Just four days back, Arjun Erigaisi was on the top of the world but it has all come crashing down as he lost another game against Vladimir Fedoseev, the Russian who now plays for Slovenia. It was another bad day in office for Erigaisi as his tactical ability surrendered before his opponent's prophylactic thinking.

Just out of the opening, Erigaisi was worse and then came close to winning in the queen pawn opening. But a blunder cost him dearly as he walked into a worse endgame. Fedoseev won a piece and never looked back.

In the challengers' section, R Vaishali made a huge comeback at the expense of Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan and Divya Deshmukh proved her critics wrong with an exemplary victory over Ediz Gurel of Turkey.

After a day that saw seven wins with white pieces in this section, Vaishali was at her best scrolling the tactical possibilities out of a queen's gambit declined and found her niche as Yakubboev forgot to take care of his weakened king. Vaishali, never shy of tactics, wrapped it up quickly.

Divya had to wait for the fourth round for her first victory, and it was a clean triumph wherein the Indian outplayed Gurel, who played black.

Winning a pawn was crucial for Divya and after that her endgame skills were clearly on the fore as she won in 56 moves.