Mary Ann Gomes

Dresden: The Indian men and women’s team registered identical 3-1 victories over Czech Republic and Slovenia respectively, in the 10th and penultimate round of the 32nd Chess Olympiad here Monday.

The women’s team, with 14 points, improved to joint seventh while the men’s team move to joint ninth position.

In the absence of Koneru Humpy, this is turning out to be an excellent campaign for the women’s team who will face higher-ranked Armenia in the final round.

Swati Ghate and Mary Ann Gomes won their respective matches after D. Harika and Tania Sachdev played out draws on the top two boards.

In the men’s section, national champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly and G.N. Gopal came good on the last two boards while Krishnan Sasikiran and P. Harikrishna were held on the top boards.

Meanwhile, there was another twist at the top of the men’s section with Ukraine defeating overnight leaders Israel 2.5-1.5 to emerge as joint leader with Armenia on 17 points.

With just one more round to go, Israel and China are now joint third on 16 points while there’s a four-way tie for the fifth spot that includes Russia.

Upsets continued to rule the women’s event and Poland emerged new sole leader on 17 points after a clinical 2.5-1.5 victory over Armenia.

The fancied Chinese went down to Georgia 1.5-2.5 in a close contest and went out of medal contention.

Serbia and Ukraine share the second spot on 16 points each while Russia and USA were still in the hunt for a podium finish with 15 points each.

The Indian men’s team faced a resolute opponent in Czech Republic.