Turin: Indian men bounced back after an opening day loss with a convincing 4-0 victory over Cyprus in the second round of the 37th Chess Olympiad here.
After a 1-3 drubbing at the hands of Morocco in the first round of the biennial chess event, the second seeds recovered some ground by winning all four boards with Grandmasters Krishnan Sasikiran, P. Harikrishna, Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda coming out with flying colours.
With 11 rounds still left and Viswanathan Anand set to join, medal prospects are still not over for the men’s team.
Meanwhile, Morocco went down 0.5-3.5 to the US in the second round.
Sasikiran, who was rested in the first round, took the top board in his first appearance in the Olympiad this year and prevailed over Antoniou Antonis, rated more than 500 points below him. On the second board, GM Harikrishna romped home with black against Kassinopoullos Polydoros.
Though Indian supremacy was never in doubt, it still took some time for Surya Sekhar to turn the heat on Aristotelous Vasileios.
On the final board, Sandipan put his first round loss behind him and crushed Savva Panikos.
Russia emerged as early sole leaders with a second emphatic 4-0 victory, this time over Latvia. With Russia maintaining their 100 per cent score after first two rounds, four teams ?? Poland, Germany, Greece and Serbia and Montenegro share the second spot with 7.5 points each.
While as many as nine teams are next with seven points, Indian men are in joint 44th spot in the biggest chess event of the world.
In the women’s event, the splendid start provided by Koneru Humpy went in vain after blunders by Swati Ghate and D. Harika saw India settling for a draw with Vietnam in the second round.
Indian eves looked set for a 3-0 victory after Humpy did the early damage on the first board, but subsequent mistakes by Ghate and Harika set India back at 1.5-1-5. Humpy displayed her class against Nguyen Thi Thanh An who was outplayed in a Queen Pawn opening game playing white. She won in just 27 moves. Ghate suffered an unexpected loss on the third board as Mary Ann Gomes was rested for the second day running.
Seven teams hold second position with 5.5 points each. Indian eves are in joint 22nd spot with 4.5 points. (PTI)
