Diptiyan and Monnisha lead

Diptiyan Ghosh (ELO 2006) of West Bengal remains the only undefeated player in the boys' section. He scored a crushing win today against Adarsh Yeshwant (ELO 1717) of Tamil Nadu to remain in sole lead at the end of 10th round. The game followed irregular Queen Pawn opening and Diptiyan achieved a dominating position on 28th move. Black's King was pushed in a compromising position and thereafter Diptiyan checkmated his opponent on 39th move.

Sidhanth Mohapatra (ELO 1996) of Orissa played brilliantly to outplay Ashwath Hari (ELO 1704) of Tamil Nadu. The game followed Scotch opening and by 18th move Black's rook proved too menacing for white's 2 minor pieces and Sidhanth won by checkmating his opponent on 58 th move.

Mohineesh C H (ELO 1925) of Andhra Pradesh scored a perfect win against Athul Krishna (ELO 1560) of Kerala on the third board. Mohineesh opted for Queen Pawn opening and by the start of endgame; Mohineesh achieved winning position to checkmate his opponent in 66 moves.

M. Satvik (ELO 1907) and Arjun Bharat (ELO 1825) of Karnataka drew their respective games against their opponents whereas Akshay Bharadwaj (ELO 1923) lost his game against unrated Karthikeyan M of Tamil Nadu.

Diptiyan is being closely followed on the second spot by Sidhanth Mahapatra. One more round remains to be played in this prestigious event.

In the girls' section, G K Monnisha (ELO 1705) of Tamilnadu defeated top seed Sweety Patel (ELO 1983) of Gujarat in an interesting game arising out of Sicilian Pelikan defence. Monnisha checkmated her opponent in 48 moves. On the second board, M. Mahalakshmi (ELO 1710) of Tamil Nadu defeated her compatriot unrated R. Abirami.
Monnisha is in the sole lead with 8.5 points and she is being closely followed by Mahalakshmi and Shoumi on 8 points.