Harika Slips To Joint Lead
By Arvind Aaron

Top seed Dronavalli Harika of Guntur lost to WGM Zawadzka Jolanta of Poland in the eleventh round to slip from sole lead to joint lead in the World Junior Girls Championship being played at Yerevan in Armenia. After 11 rounds, IM Harika shares the lead with WIM Nobolsina (Rus) and WGM Zawadzka Jolanta (Pol). They are on 8.5/11.

Harika's string of three wins ended when she lost in round eleven. With two rounds still left, she is still nicely placed to win them and take her maiden World Junior title.

Harika had won the World Under-18 Girls Championship at Batumi in Georgia last year. P.Priya is tied for the fourth place on 7.5 points and with two wins can hope to win a medal.

Other players: Eesha Karavade 7, Soumya Swaminathan 6.5, Padmini Rout, Marg Ann Gomes 6 each.

Russian GM Ivan Popov is leading the World Junior with 8.5/11. He enjoys a half point lead with two rounds still to go. Three Indians, G.Rohit, P.Negi and Abhijeet Gupta are tied for the ninth place with seven points. G.N.Gopal, Deepan Chakkaravarthy, Ashwin Jayaram are further below on 6.5. Abhishek Das and Arun Karthik are on 4.5 points and tied for the 59th place. All have lost medal hopes this time.