Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, after three exhaustive rounds, is relaxed and prepared before the quarterfinal match against World Cup champion Xu Yuhua of China tomorrow.After a gruelling six days of nerve-wracking chess that witnessed the ouster of 56 players out of 64 in the fray in the first three rounds, the players eventually got the first of the two rest days planned during the course of the championship today. Last night Humpy struck back with vengeance after losing the second game of the tie-breaker against Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia and won both the rapid games to seal her quarterfinal berth. The Indian confessed this morning that she was “shaken but not stirred” by the forgettable loss that forced her into tie-break and gave a rude wake-up call.So far, so good, but now comes the big battle for Humpy against Xu Yuhua who beat her in the semi finals of the 2002 World Cup at Hyderabad.The other quarterfinal line-ups are quite interesting. Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania and Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria, who won the Blitz tie-break games against 2003 European women champion Pia Cramling of Sweden and Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine respectively.
