India beat Ukraine; enter semi final of World Online Chess Olympiad

India entered the Semi Final of the ongoing World Online Chess Olympiad after beating Ukraine in the Quarterfinal.

The exciting match was decided in the tiebreaker after both teams won one round each. In the first round India beat Ukraine 4 -2. Harika Dronavalli and Nihal Sarin made the decisive victories for India while rest 4 games ended in a deadlock. Harika beat Nataliya Buksa while Nihal got better off Platon Galperin. The most awaited match between legendary players Viswanathan Ananda and Vasyl Ivanchunk ended in a peace treaty.

However, in the second round Ukraine came back strongly to beat India 3.5 – 2.5 to lead the match to a tie a breaker. D Harika and Praggnandhaa won their matches while Vidit Santosh Gujarathi, Koneru Humpy and Vaishali R lost their respective matches against Kirill Shevchenko, Osmak Iulija and Marria Berdnyk. Meanwhile Ivanchuk and Anand match ended without any decisive result.

In the Blitz tie break, B Adhiban, Harika Dronavalli, Nihal Sarin and Vaishali defeated their opponents while Vidit Santosh Gujarathi and Koneru Humpy drew their game to make it a score line of 5 – 1 in India’s favour.

India will face the winner of Kazakhstan and the USA in the semi finals on Tuesday while Russia will take on China. Russia defeated Hungary in the quarter final while China got better off Poland.

Photo Courtesy : Amruta Mokal & ChessBase India