Asian Junior Rapid Chess Championship: India's Mayank Chakraborty and Kazakhstan's Nazerke Nurgali clinch gold

India's Mayank Chakraborty and Kazakhstan's Nazerke Nurgali clinched gold in the Jamshedpur Tata Steel Asian Junior Rapid Chess Championship on Friday at JRD Tata Complex.

The event, which has more than 100 players from seven nations, began on Friday and the opening day featured Rapid Chess matches.

The initial rounds of the Asian Junior Rapid Chess Championship witnessed key moments as the top seed Aleksey Grebnev lost to Vivaan Vishal in the first round. Vishal, playing with white, defeated the International Master in 60 moves. Notably, Grebnev, who is from Russia, participated under the FIDE flag.

The trend of upsets continued in the further rounds as well. International Master Avinash Ramesh suffered a defeat against Arun in the Open Category. Srihari L and Srihari LR led the Open Category after the end of five rounds. Srihari LR lost to Rohit S Krishna, who finished in third place.

In a must-win match, Mayank Chakraborty emerged victorious by defeating Srihari L and finished with a score of seven to clinch the gold. Srihari L grabbed the second spot with a score of 6.5.

Nazerke Nurgali of Kazakhstan clinched the gold in the girls' event of the Asian Junior Rapid Chess Championships. She defeated India's Rindhya to win with a score of 7.5 points.

Nurgali began the Championships with a draw. Dhanishree, who has an Elo rating of 1525, held Nurgali for a draw in the opening round.

India's Mrittika Mallik and L Jyotsna topped the event with 4.5 points each after five rounds. However, in the final round, Nurgali proved too good for India's Rindhya and clinched the gold.

Mrudal Dehankar finished with a score of 7 to clinch the silver medal. The Women International Master defeated Jyothsna in the final round to clinch the silver. Jyothsna settled for a bronze medal on day one.

The classical section of the Asian Junior Rapid Chess Championships will begin on Saturday at Jamshedpur. Aleksey Grebnev and Nazerke Nurgali are the favourites to win the event.