Monaco Women's Grand Prix: Harika claims first win; Humpy plays a draw

GM Koneru Humpy played a draw against the leader Kateryna Lagno. At the same time, GM Harika Dronavalli registered her first win of the tournament in the eighth round of the Monaco Grand Prix on Wednesday.

Humpy had a chance to join the leaders with a win in this round but playing with black pieces against the solo leader was a tough ask and hence, she settled for a draw by three-fold repetition.

An intense battle for the title

Lagno played a Ruy López Opening, hoping to solidate her top position but Humpy responded well with accurate moves and thus, a less aggressive match ended in a quick 21-move draw.

Humpy has now dropped to joint 4th position with half a point separating her from the leaders. She will need to post a win in the final round today against Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakshtan to give herself any chance of winning the title.

With Lagno's draw against Humpy, the battle for the title is getting intense and a fierce final round awaits chess fans as five players are still in contention for the crown.

Harika's first win

Placing with white pieces, Harika had an outstanding game in the eighth round against Alexandra Kosteniuk of Switzerland as she notched her first win of tournament, registering an accuracy of 97.2 percent.

With this win, Harika has now jumped up to joint sixth position alongside Kosteniuk as both players now have 3.5 points in 8 matches. The Indian will now take on the Chinese player Tan Zhongyi in the final round.

Although Harika doesn't have a chance of winning the title, she will be trying to add one more point to her tally and finish in the top five of the tournament, which will help her to win a few more Grand Prix points.