Indian women, the fourth-seeds, were held to a 2-2 draw by Georgia in the opening round of the World Team Chess Championship at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, today.
The men's squad, seeded sixth, went down 1.5-2.5 to Poland with Grandmaster Vidit S Gujarathi posting the only win. Comeback man Parimarjan Negi registered a draw while GMs B Adhiban and Karthikeyan Murali suffered defeats.
Playing on the top board, Vidit Gujrathi continued his good form from the Asian Championship to put it across GM Wojtaszek.
In the women's event, Harika scored a win on the top board against GM N Dzagnidze while Esha Karvade and Padmini Rout settled for draws.
However, the experienced S Vijayalakshmi, lost to I Batsiashvili, which denied India a winning start.
Meanwhile, in other games in the women's event, Vietnam crushed Egypt 4-0 and Poland swept past Azerbaijan 3.5-0.5. USA were edged out 1.5-2.5 by Ukraine.
Host Russia got off their campaign on a confident note by subduing mighty China 3-1.
In the men's matches, the fancied Russian team outplayed Egypt 3.5-0.5 as did China against Belarus by a similar margin. USA made a winning start by trumping Norway 2.5-1.5 and Turkey and Ukraine were locked in a 2-2 draw.
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