Indian men, women chess teams clinch silver at Asian Games

The top-seeded men, boasting of a strong all-Grandmaster line-up, including teenage stars D Gukesh, the Indian No.1, and R Praggnanandhaa, finished behind Iran.

Hangzhou: The Indian men’s and women’s chess teams won silver medals at the Asian Games here on Saturday after posting easy wins in the ninth and final round.

The top-seeded men, boasting of a strong all-Grandmaster line-up, including teenage stars D Gukesh, the Indian No.1, and R Praggnanandhaa, finished behind Iran. India finished on 15 match points (2 for a win, 1 for a draw), one behind the gold medallists Iran.

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Two draws – one against Iran and the other versus China – proved to be the undoing for Indian men and ultimately saw them finish behind the gold medal-winning Iran. In the ninth and final round, India beat the Philippines 3.5-0.5 but it was not enough as Iran routed South Korea 4-0 to finish on top.

Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi and P Harikrishna defeated their respective opponents while Praggnanandhaa was held to a draw by Paulo Bersamina. In the women”s section, GM D Harika, IM R Vaishali, IM Vantika Agrawal and WGM B Savitha Shri won their games easily to set up a 4-0 win over South Korea to finish with 15 match points.

A defeat to China in the fourth round hurt the team”s chances as they fell behind and could not recover from that point. The top-seeded Chinese team won its last-round match against the UAE with a 4-0 margin to take the gold with 17 match points.

The Indian men finished their campaign with a 3.5-0.5 win against the Philippines. Speaking about the team”s performance, Praggnanandhaa said, “It went well overall. We have finished with a silver (medal). It could have gone better but considering everything, I think silver is not a bad result. Our opponents were quite good, they were all quite strong teams and we felt we played well but one or two games didn”t quite go our way.”

The fancied Indians (Vidit Gujrathi and Arjun Erigaisi among the men and K Humpy and D Harika in the women”s event) failed to win a medal in the individual event.