India's Dronavalli Harika maintained her winning run and was placed in joint lead with China's Gu Xiaobing, who upset defending champion and compatriot Le Ruofan, after the third round in the 10th Asian women's chess championship in Kozhikode on Tuesday.
Harika, who stunned second seed Zhao Xue of China in the previous round, beat China's Tian Tian today to tally three points, the same as Xiaobing.
There was more good news in store for the Indian camp as Aarthie Ramaswamy defeated third seed Wang Pin of China.
Displaying fine strategy, Aarthie launched an attack on her opponent's Queenside after deploying the Sicilian defence.
Harika played Queen's gambit against accepted variation by her Chinese opponent Tian Tian. Harika's game gained momentum after Tian lost her Queen on the 28th move. Tian resigned after 32 moves.
On the top-board, Xiaobing converted Ruofan's two-Knight defence into Italian game in the sixth move and sacrificed a Knight on the 25th to collect two pawns from her opponent on the 30th to launch an attack on the Kingside. The defending champion resigned on the 39th move.
Top seed and hot favourite Koneru Humpy, who is yet to play to her true potential, managed to gain a point against Kazakhstan's Maria Sergeeva on the third board.
Adopting classical variation against King's Indian defence, Humpy lost a pawn on the 25th move and also made a positional error on the 31st. However, Maria too blundered on the 50th move. The Kazakh finally gave up after 115 moves.
The match between sisters S Vijayalakshmi and S Meenakshi of India turned out to be a tame affair after they agreed to a draw after just seven moves.
Seventh seed Wang Yu of China overcame Safira Shahnaz in 54 moves after Shahnaz, who engaged Sicilian defence, lost control of the game.
The second seeded Zhao Xue (China) beat Bhagyashree Thipsay while fourth seed Vietnam's Hoang Thanh Trang defeated Tania Sachdev.
Sri Lanka's lone representative, Vineetha Wijesuriya, recorded her first win in the tournament, overcoming K Lakshmi Praneetha, while for Bangladesh's Parveen Syeda Shabana it was another disappointing day when she lost her third consecutive game.
A keen tussle is expected in the fourth round with the two leaders, Harika and Xiaobing, meeting each other on the top board.
Following the duo on 2.5 points apiece are Humpy, Aarthie (both IND), Ruan Lufei, Xu Yuanyuan and Wang Yu (all China).
In the third spot with two points each are Zhao Xue, Le Ruofan, Tian Tian (all CHN), Hoang Thanh Trang, Le Kieu Thien Kim (both VIE), S Vijayalakshmi and S Meenakshi.
Results (Third round) All Indians unless specified:
Gu Xiaobing (CHN) 3 beat Le Ruofan (CHN) 2; D Harika 3 beat Tian Tian (CHN) 2; Koneru Humpy 2.5 bt Maria Sergeeva (KAZ) 1.5; Wang Pin (CHN) 1.5 lost to Aarthie Ramaswamy 2.5; S Vijayalakshmi 2 drew with S Meenakshi 2; Wang Yu (CHN) 2.5 beat Safira Shahnaz 1.5; Huang Qian (CHN) 1.5 lost to Xu Yuanyuan (CHN) 2.5; Nisha Mohota 1 lost to Ruan Lufei (CHN) 2.5; Bhagyashree Thipsay 1 lost to Zhao Xue (CHN) 2; Tania Sachdev 1 lost to Hoang Thanh Trang (VIE) 2; Le Kieu Thein Kim (VIE) 2 beat Koneru Chandrahawsa 1; Swati Ghate 1.5 drew with Y Prathiba 1.5 Shen Yang (CHN) 1.5 drew with Anupama Gokhale 1.5; J E Kavitha 1.5 drew with Nguyen Thi Thanh Anh (VIE) 1; Malinicheva Lidiya (UZB) 0.5 lost to Zhang Jilin (CHN) 1.5; Swati Mohota 0 lost to Eesha Karavde 1; M R Sangeetha 0 lost to Saimeera Ravi 1; Parveen Syeda Shabana (BAN) 0 lost to P Priya 1; Vineetha Wijesuriya (SRI) 1 beat K Lakshmi Praneetha (0).