New Delhi: Indian teen prodigy R Praggnanandhaa continued his impressive run after defeating world number one Magnus Carlsen in the AirThings Masters online rapid chess tournament, defeating Grandmaster Andrey Esipenko and Alexandra Kosteniuk in the 10th and 12th rounds respectively.
The 16-year-old Indian scored two wins on Tuesday, a day after beating Carlsen while drawing a draw against Nodirbek Abdusattorov. He, however, in the 11th round lost to Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. Pragnanandha remained in 12th place with 15 points despite two wins and one draw.
He defeated a higher-rated Russian player Esipenko in 42 moves. Earlier, he started the day by playing a draw against Abdusattorov.
After losing to Nepomniachi, Praggnanandhaa defeated former women's world champion Kosteniuk in a 63-move match. Pragnananda will now take on Germany's Vincent Kemmer, America's Hans Mok Niemann and Russia's Vladislav Artemiev in the 13th, 14th and 15th rounds.
Nepomniachtchi, who lost his World Championship bout to Carlsen last month, remains on top with 27 points. Carlsen returned from a loss to Pragnanandha, defeating Kwang Liam Lay and Yan Christoph Duda but lost to Canada's Eric Hansen. He holds joint second place with Artemiev and Kemar with 20 points. The top eight players after the preliminary round will make it to the knockout stage.
(With PTI Inputs)