Mohana Priya & Khumukcham Singh emerge Champions

Indian Tournaments 2003

Archives >> 2003|Till 2002

National Under 9 (Boys & Girls) Championship, Calicut
December 23-30, 2003

Mohana Priya & Khumukcham Singh emerge champions

Confirming that his astonishing dream run was no miracle, Khumukcham S Singh of Manipur earned a convincing win against L Sreeharsha (AP) to emerge champion in the boys section of the National Under-9 chess championship, which ended here today.

J Mohana Priya (TN), who assured herself of the title in the penultimate round, completed the formalities by settling for a draw in the ninth and concluding round.

Seeded as low as 85th, Khumukcham, who made his intention quite clear right from the word go and created the biggest upset of the tournament by defeating top seed N Srinath (TNCA) in the sixth round, completed the proceedings without losing a round and leveling only twice to garner a total of eight points.

Pitted against overnight joint leader Sreeharsha in the final clash, where he required only a draw to clinch the title by virtue of his better progressive score, Khumukcham went on to win the game to establish himself as the new champion.

Mohana Priya, for whom the final round was inconsequential, settled for a truce with S Rucha Pujari (Maha) to finish on the top of the table with eight points to emerge the girls champion.

While Smarat Ghorai (WBCA) claimed the runner-up berth with 7.5 points, Sumit Kumar Banerjee (Orissa) came third with seven points in a tie-breaker after recording a better progressive score compared to Sreeharsha, Viani Antonio D Cunha (URA), K Murali Krishna (AP), Kedar Umesh Vaze (URA), Y V K Chakravarty (AP), P Anthagiri Vishwanath (AP) and S Darwin (TN).

Among the girls, S Gayathri (TN) finished second with a tally of 7.5 points, while Veena Mounica (AP) got the third spot through better progressive score after she was tied up with Rucha Pujari and Pranali M Patil (Maha) at seven points.

Agencies