Harikrishna books quarterfinal berth

Cap D'Agde:

Former World Junior champion P Harikrishna booked his quarterfinal berth with a quick draw against Laurent Fressinet of France in the final round of the Group A preliminaries of the Cap D'Agde International Rapid chess tournament. In the quarterfinals, Harikrishna will meet Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine who won the group B with awesome ease scoring a whopping 5.5 points. On a day when Grandmasters Koneru Humpy and Parimarjan Negi were ousted from the competition, Harikrishna kept his cool and took his chance of fighting a tiebreaker after getting into some difficulties against Fressinet. As the events unfolded, Hari's nearest rival Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria was held to a draw by lowly placed Marie Sebag of France and that gave the Indian an easier passage to the last-eight stage. Stefanova's victory would have forced Harikrishna to play a blitz tiebreaker which in his own words, he was glad to avoid. Meanwhile Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine comprehensively won this section after an easy draw with Negi who had to be content with 6th place on 3 points. Karjakin scored 5 points out of a possible 7 and was half a point adrift of Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and Fressinet who finished second and third respectively. Harikrishna scored 4 points in all. (PTI)