Khanty-Mansiysky (Russia): Grandmaster P. Harikrishna was forced into a tie-breaker by China’s Yu Shaoteng who held the higher-rated Indian for a second consecutive draw in the first round of the Chess World Cup here.

Having drawn the first game with white pieces on Sunday, Harikrishna adopted a cautious approach and did not try much with black pieces in the second game.

On Sunday, Bengal’s Surya Shekhar Ganguly stole the opening day honours, crashing through the defence of US champion Hikaru Nakamura.

Harikrishna and K. Sasikiran were held by Yu Shaoteng of China and Aleksei Iljushin of Russia, respectively.

Top seed Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine took off in emphatic style as the hot favourite accounted for little known Aleksander Sibriaev of Russia in the event being played on a knock-out basis till round three, after which only 16 out of 128 participants will remain in the fray.

Surya started off as an underdog in the contest with Nakamura.

Playing his pet classical system against the Nazdorf Sicilian, Surya Sekhar made sure of a small advantage out of the opening and nurtured it well enough to punish a rather ambitious looking Nakamura, who was outplayed in the late stages of the middle game.

Surya Sekhar, after winning a pawn and then transposing to an endgame made sure nothing went wrong before he romped home in 90-moves. (PTI)