On a day of upsets, Vignesh's elder brother N R stunned national Under-25 champion and International Master Rahul Sangma of Railways.
Among other highlights, talented Andhra Pradesh youngster Praneeth Surya held fifth seed IM Swayams Mishra of Orissa to a creditable draw while IM Varugueese Koshy of PSPB and IM D P Singh of Railways were shocked by unheralded Lakshmi Sandeep Naidu of Andhra Pradesh and Rishi Sardana of Delhi respectively.
However, top seeded IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni had it easy against Niladri Shekhar Bhattacharya of West Bengal while second seed S Satyapragyan of Air India scored a facile win over Rajib Dhar of Assam.
Third seed and World Under-18 Bronze medalist Debashis Das of Orissa defeated Anjan Mallick of West Bengal.