Mumbai: GMs P. Harikrishna and Surya Sekhar Ganguly went down fighting to Russian GMs Pavel Smirnov and Alexander Fominyh in the fifth round of the Commonwealth Chess on Wednesday. The Russian players are now the joint leaders.

Smirnov and Fominyh have 4.5 points each. They are half a point ahead of top seed Nigel Short of England, Dzhumaev Marat of Uzbekistan, Sergey Iskusnyh of Russia, Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh and five Indians — Krishnan Sasikiran, Abhijit Kunte, Praveen Thipsay, Tejas Bakre and Sharad Tilak.

Playing with the Berlin Defence, Harikrishna lost to Smirnov.

Fominyh defeated Surya Sekhar who played black. “He played really well right through,” said Surya Sekhar. (PTI)