Karthikeyan, Rout finish 4th in Asian blitz chess

Grandmaster Murali Karthikeyan signed off in fourth place at the Asian Individual Blitz Chess Championship, with Padmini Rout replicating the result in the women's section to emerge as the top Indian performers here. The open section was won by 15-year-old Grandmaster Ivan Zemlyanskiia who represents Russia but competed under the FIDE flag. He scores a dominant 8 out of 9 points.

Fellow 15-year-old Iran's Sina Mohaved finished second on 7.5 points ahead of Rudik Makarian of Russia who had 7 points but the best tiebreak score. Just behind Karthikeyan was Neelash Saha who also notched seven points but had to be content with a fifth-place finish.

Former Blitz world champion Alexander Grischuk, who flew in with his wife and fellow Grandmaster Kateryna Lagno, both top seeds in their sections, failed to make it to the podium. Grandmaster Nihal Sarin, known to be a great exponent in the faster version of the game decided to give the blitz event a miss. Alua Nurman of Kazakhstan won the women's event ahead of Russian Valentina Gunina on 7.5 points and the third place went to Yuxin Song of China who had a better tiebreak than Rout. PTI