MARDIN (TURKEY), Dec 20 (PTI): Led by Koneru Humpy, the Indian women�s team cruised to an emphatic 3.5-0.5 victory over Turkey and jumped to fourth spot after the end of the second round of the World Women Team Chess Championship here.
Kubra Ozturk denied India a complete whitewash against the hosts by holding International Master Tania Sachdev to an easy draw, while on the other three boards the Indian girls had no problems in ensuring sweeping victories.
China came back strongly from a near-shocking start to beat South Africa 4-0, while Russia recorded a 3-1 victory against Ukraine. China and Russia now share the lead with Georgian eves, who scored a minimal 2.5-1.5 victory over Armenia.
With seven rounds still to go in the 10-team round-robin event, China, Russia and Georgia have four match points, while India now stands fourth on three match points.
Not far behind is Armenia and Vietnam with two points in their kitty, while Ukraine is now seventh with just one point that it secured against India in the opener.
Turkey, Greece and South Africa share the last spot, yet to open their match point account.
South Africa, in fact, are yet to open their score on any boards.
The Turks had started with a very satisfying 1.5 points against highly fancied China in the opener but Humpy ended chances of a similar performance with clinical precision against Yildiz Betul Cemre.
For the records, it was a queen pawn game wherein Humpy exerted pressure on the queen side to get two connected passed pawns. After regulation exchanges, the players reached an endgame which turned out to be child�s play for the Indian ace.
