Ramesh, Hari joint third at chess festival

Grandmaster R B Ramesh held top seed GM Evgeny Vladimirov of Kazakhstan to an easy draw to be at joint third position after the seventh round of the Masters section of 14th Abu Dhabi chess festival now in progress here.

On a day that witnessed grueling battles for lead positions, GM P Harikrishna was held to a draw by Mahjoob Morteza of Iran and GM Tejas Bakre went down against his Russian counterpart Dmitry Bocharov.

Former Asian junior girls champion Tania Sachdev suffered a reversal at the hands of International Master Imad Hakki of Syria and though her second Woman Grandmaster norm prospects have not suffered any severe blow, the Indian might just need to push a little more for her maiden IM norm.