Harika jumps five places, takes World No. 5 position

Riding on her winning streak in the last couple of months, Grand Master Harika Dronavalli on Tuesday broke into the top five in the world chess rankings.

She has jumped five places to the fifth position in the rankings and is poised to rise to her career-best standing.

Harika, who recently won the Fide women's Grand Prix in Chengdu, is currently playing in the Chinese Chess League and is not showing any signs of slowing down. She recorded her third straight win on Tuesday to help her team, Shandong, maintain pole position along with Team Shanghai.

Playing black against lower rated opponent, Du Yuxin, the Hyderabadi lass dominated all through and easily won the game.

"My opponent played a solid game but made some strategic mistakes. I used that to my advantage and outplayed her to gain the point," she said.

Team Shandong had a fruitful day on Tuesday, picking up 3.5 points out of the 4 games held in this leg.

Pentala Harikrishna, India's other Grand Master in the fray in the elite tournament, drew his game against Xu Minghui of Team Zhejiang. Hari is representing Team Shanghai.

The Chinese Chess League is an annual elite tournament, comprising of 12 teams. All of China's top players and a number of foreign players were assembled in Jiaxing for this event.

The elite league is played from April to December, lasting 22 rounds over six sessions of three to four days each. The current leg ended on July 26. Each match is played over five boards, with women playing on two of them. The next leg of this tournament is expected in September, later this year.

--IANS

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