Sujatha Srinivasan reports from the venue (Hyatt Regency, New Delhi)

14 Dec 2000 New Delhi

Women's Final Xie Jun vs Qin Kanying

Xie continue to lead.

Qin Kanying played very well to hold the defending champion Xie Jun to a draw with black pieces. She now needs a win with white pieces in the last game tomorrow to force a tiebreak.

Xie Jun drew today to come within a draw of defending her title.

Men's Semi-Final Michael Adams vs. Viswanathan Anand

Anand and Adams

Anand shares the point with Adams

Vishy Anand held on to his lead with a 73 move draw with black. Only a miracle will save Michael Adams now who has to win with black tomorrow to stay in the match.

There was big press interest as Anand closes in on a final place.

Once again it was a Petroff defense and Adams seemed to have an edge throughout but never really could convert it into a full point. Anand in the early middlegame exchanged his rook and thought it was a blunder. "I thought I had blundered but it didn't turn out that way" Adams said, "I had a slight edge, some advantage". He added, "I just wanted to play a normal game, put pressure on him" when asked if he very badly wanted to win today’s game with white pieces. About his game tomorrow he said that he had "only a 5% chance to win".

Men's Semi-Final Alexei Shirov vs Alexander Grischuk

Shirov back in lead.

Alexy Shirov has got back his lead against Alexander Grishchuk in the third round. Today he defeated him in an excellent game. Shirov arrived five minutes late to the playing hall and in the meanwhile Grishchuk was reading the daily bulletin.

The day’s bulletin was the main attraction in the playing hall today especially for the players. Anand who usually arrives early to the hall arrived only few minutes before the start of the game. Adams was very much in his seat. The first thing Anand normally does is to read the daily bulletin. He started that and the arbiter started announcing the rules for the day. He kept aside the bulletin for a second and again started continuing to read it. The main feature of the day’s bulletin is the interview of Khalifman by Valery Salov. Grishchuk too spent time reading the bulletin rather than taking a stroll as usual.