Anand draws with Gelfand; finishes third

World champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Boris Gelfand of Israel in the ninth and final round to finish third in the Alekhine memorial chess tournament here.
Playing the black side of a Semi-Slav, Anand got nothing to push for, even as Gelfand played quite solidly for one of his best performance ever. The Israeli ended as joint first along with Levon Aronian of Armenia, who defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagraev of France in his final game.
In other games of the day, Nikita Vituigov of Russia mishandled a promising position and drew with Ding Liren of China, while another Russian Peter Svidler shared the point with Laurent Fressinet of France.

World number three Vladimir Kramnik won against Michael Adams of England to deprive the English GM of a joint third place.
Both Gelfand and Aronian ended on 5.5 points and Anand stood sole third with five points in all.
After a shocking first round loss, this was a good comeback by Anand who started winning only in the fifth round of the tournament. For the records, the Indian ace won two, lost one and drew the remaining six games.
Kramnik tied for the fourth spot with Vachier-Lagraev, Adams, Frsssinet and Vituigov on 4.5 points each, while Ding Liren finished ninth on 3.5 points.

Luckless through the event, Svidler finished last scoring three points in all.