Tata Steel 2024 R9: Praggnanandhaa beats Wenjun Ju, joins the lead with Abdusattorov, Giri and Gukesh
R Praggnanandhaa defeated the reigning four-time women's world champion, Wenjun Ju (CHN) in Round 9 of 86th Tata Steel Masters 2024. This means Praggnanandhaa has defeated both reigning world champions in open and women, just a week apart in the very same tournament. This win also ensured he joined the lead with Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB), Anish Giri (NED) and D Gukesh. Abdusattorov scored the quickest victory of the round against Jorden van Foreest (NED). Gukesh drew against Vidit Gujrathi. Leon Luke Mendonca won a grueling battle against Jaime Santos Latasa (ESP) after 111 moves. He is trailing the sole leader Marc' Andria Maurizzi (FRA) by a half point at 6/9. Round 10 starts today at 2 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. IST. Photos: Jurriaan Hoefsmit/Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024
Leon Luke Mendonca maintains his pursuit
"Honestly, before this game, I didn't have any such idea because I was not scoring a win. But yeah today was a good game. Yeah still as I said, four more games and anyone could run away with the quick wins. I should just try to play my best and see." - R Praggnanandhaa on his win allowing him to make the lead four-way.
Praggnanandhaa - Wenjun: 1-0
R Praggnanandhaa (2743) has never lost a Classical rated game against the women's world champion - Wenjun Ju (CHN, 2549). Their last encounter took place at Sharjah Masters 2023. That ended in a draw. This time, Praggnanandhaa had the white pieces and the result was same as their first battle against each other in 2019.
According to Praggnanandhaa, Black's final mistake was 22...exf3? Instead, Black could have gone 22...Kh7 23.fxe4 Bxb3 24.axb3 Rxe5. The game continued 23.gxf3 Nh5 24.Rg1 c4 25.Nxc4 Qe7 26.a3 Bxc3 27.Bxc3 White activated all his pieces, they focused their attack on Black's kingside and won the game in the next few moves.
Donchenko - Firouzja: 1-0
Alexander Donchenko (GER, 2643) has never beaten Alireza Firouzja (FRA, 2759) in a Classical rated game. That changed yesterday.
Donchenko felt that his opponent played a very weird Bd7-b5-e2 maneuver. He realized that the bishop is not doing much and Black cannot play like that. His position started falling apart and he had very little time left on the clock. Black's final mistake turned out to be 33...Rh6?? 34.Rc7 Rh7 35.Bxh5 and it was over.
Leon - Jaime
Leon Luke Mendonca (2608) showed great tenacity against Jaime Santos Latasa (ESP, 2615). After 51.Kxd3 he managed to gain the d6-pawn and convert his advantage into a win after another 61 moves.
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Round 9 results
Standings after Round 9
Round 10 pairings
Schedule
Starting from Saturday 13th to 27th January, all round starts at 2 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. IST. Only Sunday 28th January, the final round will start at 12 p.m. local time, 4:30 p.m. IST. Rest days are same for both Masters and Challengers section - 17th, 22nd and 25th January 2024.
Time Control
100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds increment for each move starting from the first move.
