Mashhad: Grandmaster and national champion Parimarjan Negi suffered a setback, losing to his Chinese counterpart Bu Xiangzhi in the third round of the Asian Individual Chess Championship.

After two victories in the first two games, Negi could not quite match the Chinese and will now have some catching up to do.

Second seed Krishnan Sasikiran, however, came up with an inspired performance to outclass S P Sethuraman and P Harikrishna and showed his true mettle to crush Yu Ruiyuan of China.

Bu Xiangzhi emerged as the sole leader with a perfect score, while Sasikiran, Harikrishna and four others are now on the heels of the leader with 2.5 points apiece. Negi along with fellow Indians B Adhiban, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Abhijeet Kunte shares the eighth spot currently.

Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta is the only other Indian, assured of the seat.