India suffers two defeats on second day of Online Nations Cup Chess

Chennai, May 6: India suffered a double blow, losing its third and fourth round matches to Europe and top-seeded China by similar 1.5-2.5 margins, on the second day of the FIDE-Chess.com Online Nations Cup on Wednesday.

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand came up against a strong opponent in Ding Liren and the two agreed to sign peace in 54 moves. P Harikrishna held higher-rated Yu Yangyi to a draw while long-time rivals Koneru Humpy and Hou Yifan drew their game.

India No. 2 Vidit Gujrathi lost his third successive game in the tournament, going down to Wang Hao to enable China secure a victory in the fourth round.

Earlier in the day, India went down to Europe 1.5-2.5 with Gujrathi's defeat at the hands of Levon Aronian proving to be decisive.

Anand and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played out a draw on the top board. Harikrishna held Jan-Krzysztof Duda and world rapid champion Humpy and Anna Muzychuk shared the honours.

China escaped with a 2-2 draw against Russia thanks to Ding Liren's superb win over Ian Nepomniachtchi after the talented Vladislav Artmiev had given his team the advantage, by beating Wei Yi.

The two other games -- Yu Yangyi and Sergey Karjakin and Aleksandra Goryachkina versus Ju Wenjun -- ended in stalemate.

Meanwhile, Europe rode on wins by Aronian and Nana Dzagnidze to thrash USA 3-1. China is ahead of the field with seven match points and 10.5 board points at the conclusion of four rounds.

India, which started as the fifth seed, is languishing at the bottom with one match point and 6.5 board points.

On Tuesday, India drew 2-2 against USA in the opening round before losing to Rest of the World 1.5-2.5. The event follows the double round-robin format, with the two leading teams battling for the title in the Super-final.

All matches involve four boards -- represented by three men and a women player. The rapid time-control is 25-minutes plus 10-second increment per move.