Chandigarh: Pack of 4 ahead in girls

Chandigarh: In an interesting development in the ongoing 34th National Under-17 Open & Girls Chess Championship at Panjab University, Narahari Geetika Hasini of Telangana, Tejaswini G of Tamil Nadu, Patil Divya of Maharashtra and Kirtika B of Telangana secured the top positions with eight points each after the 10th round. They were followed by Anupam M Sreekumar of Kerala and Shravya Shri Bhimarshetty of Andhra Pradesh who scored 7½ points. Sherali Patnaik of Uttarakhand, Sneha Halder of West Bengal and Sera Dagaria of Madhya Pradesh also secured the top positions with seven points each. Kale Shruti (Maharashtra), Maitreyi Mandal (West Bengal), Krishika Garg (Delhi), Anushka Bapu Kutwal (Maharashtra), Rajanya Dutta (West Bengal), Thefiga KP (Tamil Nadu), Amukta Guntaka (Andhra Pradesh), Cynthia Sarkar (West Bengal), Sindhushree K (Tamil Nadu), Padmini S (Tamil Nadu), Sagar Siya (Gujarat), Drishti Ghosh (Karnataka) and Shanmati Sri S (Tamil Nadu) all scored 6½ points.

Sriram on top

Meanwhile, in the Open category, Sriram Adarsh ​​Uppala of Telangana maintained his lead till the end of Round 10. Uppala topped the table with nine points. He was followed by Arpit S Bijoy of Kerala, who scored 8½ points. Jaiveer Mahendru of Maharashtra, Mukund Hemant Agarwal of Gujarat and Punit Verma of Punjab were tied for third with eight points each. This championship is being hosted by Chandigarh Chess Association and a total of 325 players are participating in it.