Wijk Aan Zee: Viswanathan Anand drew with David Navara of the Czech Republic to end his campaign on 7.5 points for a fifth-place finish in group A of Corus International Chess tournament here.

Grandmaster Levon Aronian of Armenia, top seed Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan jointly won the category-19 event on 8.5 points apiece.

Of the three, Radjabov played it safe against Topalov in the final round while Aronian came up with yet another spirited show to outclass local hope Sergei Tiviakov.

Five-time winner Anand settled for the fifth spot this time as world champion Vladimir Kramnik cruised past Dutchman Loek Van Wely to go a half point clear of the Indian. Kramnik was clear fourth on 8 points.

In group C, world’s youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi ended on a positive note with a sparkling victory over Chinese wonder-girl Hou Yifan. Finishing on 7.5 points in all, Negi justified his fourth seeding in the event, ending fourth in this competitive field.

It was a quirk of fate that stopped Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia from winning the title. Leading from day one when he defeated hot favourite Michal Krasenkow of Poland, the young Russian finally ran out of steam against IM Nadezhda Kosintseva and lost with his white pieces.

The group C was won by Krasenkow who crashed through the defenses of Zhaoqin Peng in his final-round game to make 10.5 points in all. Nepomniachtchi finished second on 10 points and a distant third was Emanuel Berg of Sweden on 8 points.

In the last round against Navara, Anand could not find the favourable complications he was looking for in a Ruy Lopez and drew after 27 moves. Aronian was a class act against Tiviakov and scored a chanceless victory in just 43 moves of a Queen’s Indian defense game where the former played white.

Earlier, Anand’s hopes of winning his sixth Corus title evaporated after he was held to an easy draw by Sergei Tiviakov of The Netherlands in the penultimate round.

After sharing the honours in this Group A game, Anand crawled to seven points in the first super tournament of the year, while Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan joined Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in lead on eight points with just one round left in the event.

World’s youngest GM Parimarjan Negi played out a battling draw against tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia after 55 moves of a French Defence game in Group .

The game against Tiviakov turned out to be a damper for Anand as the former simply did not try harder with his white pieces. Anand opted for the Caro Kann Defence to equalise comfortably in the opening and after three minor pieces got traded, it was just a level position. (PTI)