VUNG TAU CITY, SEPT 18: Top seed and GM norm holder K Sasikiran maintained his momentum towards the title as he stretched his lead to 1.5 points after the sixth round of the boys event in the Asian Junior Chess Championship here today.Sasikiran beat Ahmed Aziz of Iraq to aggregate 5.5 points to be well clear of six players who were bunched together in the second spot with 4 points each. Defending champion Tejas Bakre (3.5) was held to a draw by Darwin Laylo (4) of The Philippines and remained another half a point adrift.But it was a disappointing day for the girls. Top seed S Vijayalakshmi (3.5) was upset by Le Thi Phuon Leiu (4.0) of Vietnam while second-seeded Vietnamese Le Kieu Thien Kim (4.5) beat fifth-ranked Pallavi Shah (3) and M R Sangeetha (2) lost to Joy Sherry Lomibao (3) to suffer their second straight reverses.China's Wang Yu maintained the lead with 5.5 points with Thien Kim (4.5) lying second.Kidambi 37th seedYEREVAN (ARMENIA): Junior National champions SunderarajanKidambi and IWM Nisha Mohota will make up the Indian challenge in the world junior boys and girls chess championships which started here today.The 16-year-old Kidambi, seeded 37th on the basis of his Elo rating of 2334, is in good form which saw him earn two International Master (IM) norms recently in Biel, Switzerland and at the British championships.Kidambi also did well to qualify for the National A championship and can look forward to earning his third IM norm in this meet, which boasts of a strong field including four Grandmasters (GM), 21 IMs and three Fide masters.Mohota (2198) will also hope of doing well in her second attempt. The West Bengal girl represented the country in the 1994 edition played in Brazil.DK Sharma triumphsLUCKNOW: Dinesh Sharma retained the title in the Piloo Modi memorial all-India Open Chess Tournament which concluded here today.With this win he pocketed Rs. 20,000 as prize money leaving behind top rated Shriram Jha, CJ Arvind and Pradeep Pathak for thejoint runners-up place.
