Ian Nepomniachtchi Advances to Round 5 of FIDE World Cup
He defeated Nihal Sarin on a tiebreak.
Friday, August 11, the city of Baku saw the Round 4 tiebreaks of the FIDE World Cup.
In the Open tournament the following players won their rapid chess matches: Ian Nepomniachtchi over Nihal Sarin, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa over Hikaru Nakamura, Nijat Abasov over Peter Svidler, Dommaraju Gukesh over Andrey Esipenko, and Saleh Salem over Daniele Vocaturo.
In the 10+10 series, Magnus Carlsen outplayed Vincent Keymer, Leinier Dominguez outperformed Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Vassily Ivanchuk beat Vahap Sanal, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda defeated Parham Maghsoodloo.
Wang Hao and Rasmus Svane could define the strongest only at the 3+2 blitz stage, when the match stops when one of the players wins. Playing White, the Chinese grandmaster won the very first game with this time control and advanced to the next round.
1/8 pairings:
Carlsen – Ivanchuk
Wang Hao – Gukesh
Abasov – Salem
Vidit – Nepomniachtchi
Caruana – Duda
Dominguez – Sarana
Grandelius – Erigaisi
Berkes – Praggnanandhaa.
In the Women's section, all matches ended at the rapid chess stage. Elisabeth Paehtz knocked the World Women’s Champion Ju Wenjun out of the race, Anna Muzychuk defeated Mariya Muzychuk, Nurgyul Salimova beat Medina Warda Aulia, Humpy Koneru went down to Bela Khotenashvili, and Eline Roebers lost to Harika Dronavalli.
Quarterfinal pairings:
Muzychuk – Paehtz
Salimova – Shuvalova
Tan Zhongyi – Khotenashvili
Goryachkina – Dronavalli.
Pictures by Eteri Kublashvili
