India beat Turkey in women's chess team championship

Koneru Humpy

India defeated hosts Turkey in the second round of the World Women Chess Team Championship here.

Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, Women Grandmasters Padmini Rout and Soumya Swaminathan won their respective matches at the Erdoba Elegance Hotel here Monday night. International Master Tania Sachdev was held by Women International Kubra Ozturk, who is 200 elo points behind the Indian. India won 3.5-0.5 against Turkey.

In other matches, the top-seeded Chinese won 4-0 against South Africans. Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue, Tan Zhongyi and Zhang Xiaowen made a clean sweep for China in the second round.

Chinese coach Yu Shaoteng praised the complete victory of the Chinese players.

“It was an easy game, but the next few teams will be stronger. Thus, Hou Yifan, who is the reigning women’s world chess champion, will no longer take rest in order to make the best lineup,” Yu was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

In other match-ups, Russia defeated Ukraine, Georgia beat Armenia while, Vietnam won against Greece.

For Russia it was a hard-fought 3-1 win. Deeper in the game, Russia got an overall advantage that transformed first into the win of Valentina Gunina over Tatjana Vasilevich. The victory was secured by Tatiana Kosinseva who took an upper hand over Maria Muzychuk. The games between Anna Ushenina and Nadezhda Kosintseva on the first board and Natalia Zhukova and Alexandra Kosteniuk on the third board were drawn for Russia.

Gerogia and China are in joint lead with 6.5 points. Russia, India and Armenia are sharing the second place with 5.5 points while Vietnam are third with four.