Anand defeats Ponomariov

Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands:

Viswanathan Anand settled old scores, beating Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine to remain in joint lead after the seventh round of the 65th Corus Chess tournament. Anand, who lost his World Champion crown to Ponomariov last year, registered the victory in 34 moves. Dutch Champion Grandmaster Loek Van Wely defeated Jan Timman and continued to lead the tables along with Anand on 5 points. The other overnight leader and world's highest rated woman, Judit Polgar drew a tense game with top seed Braingames Champion Vladimir Kramnik and slipped to joint third spot on 4.5 points. Joining her in third spot was Spaniard Alexei Shirov, who humbled Evgeny Bareev of Russia. In the Grandmaster 'B' tournament, former world junior girls champion Koneru Humpy finally tasted success cruising past local hope GM Harmen Jonkman. Top seed GM Zhang Zhong recorded his sixth win on the trot crushing GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany. The Chinese leads with a huge gap of 1.5 points, having 6.5 points in his kitty. (PTI)