The experienced Surya Shekhar Ganguly, GM Raunak Sadhwani and GM Karthik Venkatraman scored comfortable victories, while M Pranesh played out a draw to advance to the second round. IM Aronyak Ghosh defeated GM Mateusz Bartel of Poland to force a tiebreaker in the FIDE World Cup 2025 here on Sunday.
The 42-year-old Ganguly, playing black, knew that Ahmadzada had to take risks to draw level after losing the opening game. The Indian took control by attacking from the king side and forced his opponent to resign after just 28 moves, becoming the first Indian to advance to the second round, where he will face French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Karthik, who had drawn his opening game against GM Roberto Garcia Pantoja on Saturday, forced his opponent to resign after 39 moves to set up a second-round clash against compatriot GM Aravindh Chithambaram VR.
Also advancing was Sadhwani. The 19-year-old from Nagpur had managed to draw the opening game against FM Daniel Barrish of South Africa despite making errors. On Sunday, he made no mistakes and clinched a win with black pieces in 39 moves.
While Ganguly, Sadhwani and Karthik won, 19-year-old Pranesh did not take any unnecessary risks against Kazakhstan’s Satbek Akhmedinov and split the point after 36 moves in a rook–pawn endgame.
The FIDE World Cup 2025 is a single-elimination knockout tournament with 206 players from 82 countries competing for the coveted Viswanathan Anand Cup, named after the Indian legend.
Meanwhile, GM Aronyak Ghosh, who lost the first game with black pieces against Bartel, came up with a solid middlegame to seize the advantage and converted it in 41 moves to keep his campaign alive.
Four other Indian players, Raja Rithvik R, Diptayan Ghosh, Lalit Babu MR and Narayanan SL, will now take the rapid route to make it to the next round after drawing their respective games. Rithvik was held to a draw by Kazakhstan’s Kazybek Nogerbek in 30 moves in the second game on Sunday, while Diptayan, playing white, could not break through China’s GM Peng Xiongjian after 39 moves.
Meanwhile, wild card entrant Divya Deshmukh’s campaign came to an end in the first round after she went down 0:2 against Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis. Having lost the opening game with white pieces, the 19-year-old women’s World Cup champion needed a win to stay alive on Sunday.
She tried her best to overturn the deficit but ultimately had to accept defeat in a marathon 73-move game, with her opponent’s extra pawn in the endgame proving decisive.
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Also read: FIDE World Cup: Pranav wins, Divya goes down fighting
Indian results (Game 2 – Round 1)
GM Pranav V bt Ala Eddine Boulrens (Alg) 2:0
GM Raunak Sadhwani bt FM Daniel Barrish (RSA) 1.5:0.5
M Pranesh bt IM Satbek Akhmedinov (Kaz) 1.5:0.5
GM Karthik Venkataraman bt GM Roberto Garcia Pantoja (Cub) 1.5:0.5
GM Diptayan Ghosh drew with GM Peng Xiongjian (CHN) 1:1
GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly bt GM Ahmad Ahmadzada (AZE) 2:0
GM Iniyan Pa bt GM Dylan Berdayes (Cub) 1.5:0.5
GM Raja Rithvik R drew with Kazybek Nogerbek (Kaz) 1:1
IM Aronyak Ghosh drew with GM Mateusz Bartel (Pol) 1:1
GM Lalit Babu MR drew with GM Max Warmerdam (Ned) 1:1
GM Narayanan SL drew with IM Steven Rojas (Per) 1:1
IM Himal Gusain lost to GM Andy Woodward (USA) 0:2
IM Harshavardhan GB lost to GM Mustafa Yilmaz (Tur) 0.5:1.5
IM Neelash Saha lost to GM Georg Meier (Uru) 0.5:1.5
GM Leon Luke Mendonca lost to IM Shixu B Wang (Chn) 0.5:1.5
GM Divya Deshmukh lost to GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (Gre) 0:2
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