Anand emerges joint leader

Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands:

World Cup champion Viswanathan Anand shared points with Dutch Grandmaster Loek Van Wely to emerge joint leader after the third round of the 65th Corus chess tournament. In the Grandmaster 'B' tournament being held simultaneously, India's Koneru Humpy slumped to the 10th position after suffering a shock defeat to 15-year old IM Daniel Stellwagen of the Netherlands in a third round game. Anand, who won the second round game besides drawing the opening board, is joined on the top position with two points each by Russian Evgeny Bareev, former World Champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia and world's best woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary. Top seed and Braingames Champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia put up an exemplary performance to crush overnight leader GM Bareev, who remained in joint lead despite the loss. As many as seven players follow the four leaders half a point behind. They are the Ukrainian duo of Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov, Spaniard Alexei Shirov, Russian Alexander Grischuk, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, Kramnik and VanWely. In the Grandmaster 'B' tournament, GM Zhang Zhong of China took the sole lead after beating Women GM Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia. (PTI)

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