Open Section:
Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, and Praggnanandhaa R advanced to the next round at the end of game 2 in round 3. The duel between Indians Gukesh (2744) and Narayanan S.L. (2656) favoured the former, who maintained his excellent form. Arjun (2710) defeated Russian grandmaster Fedoseev Vladimir (2676), who is currently representing Slovenia, while Pragg (2690) outperformed the powerful and experienced grandmaster David Navara (2689).
Arjun will be playing the talented Javokhir Sindarov, Pragg will lock horns with the world no. 2 and five-time U.S. Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura in the fourth round, and Gukesh will face the winner between Andrey Esipenko and Vallejo Pons Francisco.
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin drew their respective games, and as the scores are level after the two regular games, they'll be playing two tie-break games tomorrow. Playing with the white pieces, Vidit (2719) settled for a draw against the German GM Matthias Bluebaum (2672), and the 19-year-old Nihal held slightly higher-rated Romanian GM Deac Bogdan-Daniel (2693) with the black pieces.
The two tie-break games shall be played with a time control of 25 minutes for each player + 10 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1.
Harsha Bharathakoti, Karthik Venkataraman, Adhiban B., and Puranik Abhimanyu have already been eliminated from the World Cup!
Women's Section:
A bad in the women's section for India, as Vaishali Rameshbabu (2431) lost to Mariya Muzychuk (2511), Mary Ann Gomes (2326) lost to Salimova Nurgyul (2409), and Divya Deshmukh (2400) lost to stronger player Aleksandra Goryachkina (2557).
Experienced campaigner Koneru Humpy (2553) keeps India's chances alive by defeating Badelka Olga (2397) and will face Georgian GM Bella Khotenashvili in round 4. Harika Dronavalli (2500) drew with Lela Javakhishvili (2439) and moves to tie-breaks tomorrow.
Nandhidhaa P. V. and Priyanka Nutakki have already been knocked out of the tournament.
You can tune in at 4:15 PM to FIDE's youtube channel to watch the games live here:
*** Check India Sports Rankings on fanrank.org/rankings