Third seeded Woman International Master Aarthie Ramaswamy of Tamil Nadu struggled to draw her last round match against defending champion and top seeded WGM S Vijayalakshmi of Tamil Nadu to win the National 'A' chess title on better progressive score on the final day of the championship in Mumbai on Friday.
In the men's section, top seed and World number 40, Krishnan Sasikiran of Tamil Nadu, who had already won the title on Thursday, drew his last round match against IM Sriram Jha of Delhi quite easily.
Grandmasters Pendyala Harikrishna of Andhra Pradesh, the second seed, and Abhijit Kunte of Maharashtra, the third seed, finished second and third respectively in the men's section while Vijayalakshmi and Nisha Mohota of Bengal finished second and third respectively in the women's section.
The final standings (men):
1. K Sasikiran (16), 2. P Harikrishna (14), 3. Abhijit Kunte (12.5), 4. Dibyendu Barua (12.5), 5. S S Ganguly (12), 6. S Kidambi (11.5), 7. Neelotpal Das (11.5), 8. Tejas Bakre (11), 9. Praveen Thipsay (11), 10. S R Chowdhury (10).
Women's top six:
1. R Aarthie (9), 2. S Vijayalakshmi (9), 3. Nisha Mohota (8.5), 4. D Harika (8.5), 5. Swati Ghate (8), 6. Tania Sachdev (6.5).
