Sasikiran secures third place; Five Indians score norms in Aeroflot Open
Grandmaster Sasikiran Krishnan finished third after drawing third-seeded Grandmaster Wang Hao of China in the ninth and final round at the ‘Category A’ of Aeroflot Open 2019.
Sasikiran dominated the first half of the tournament with 5.0/5 but three draws and a loss in second half secured him a third-place finish. Estonian grandmaster Kaido Kulaots became the surprising winner of the tournament after edging out GM Haik Martirosyan of Armenia on tiebreak (both scored 7 points).
The Aeroflot Open was held across three categories (A, B and C). A total of 57 Indians participated and, 33 of them were sponsored by the Government of India.
There were norms galore in the tournament IM Raunak Sadwani bagged his maiden GM norm, CM Aditya Mittal, Koustav Chatterjee, and Sammed Jaykumar Shete made IM norms each while WIM Divya Deshmukh secured her second WGM norm.
Mr. Bharat Singh Chauhan, Hon’ble Secretary of AICF conducted a meeting with the youngsters after the tournament.
Final Standings
| Rk. | SNo | Name | Typ | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | |
| 1 | 62 | GM | Kulaots Kaido | EST | 2542 | 7,0 | 5 | 2647 | |
| 2 | 28 | GM | Martirosyan Haik M. | ARM | 2616 | 7,0 | 4 | 2563 | |
| 3 | 11 | GM | Sasikiran Krishnan | IND | 2678 | 6,5 | 4 | 2607 | |
| 4 | 3 | GM | Wang Hao | CHN | 2714 | 6,0 | 5 | 2600 | |
| 5 | 1 | GM | Wei Yi | CHN | 2733 | 6,0 | 4 | 2589 | |
| 6 | 30 | GM | Chigaev Maksim | RUS | 2613 | 6,0 | 4 | 2586 | |
| 7 | 7 | GM | Inarkiev Ernesto | RUS | 2692 | 6,0 | 4 | 2580 | |
| 8 | 21 | GM | Sarana Alexey | RUS | 2630 | 6,0 | 4 | 2573 | |
| 9 | 15 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | ESP | 2642 | 6,0 | 4 | 2557 | |
| 10 | 43 | GM | Tabatabaei M.Amin | U18 | IRI | 2590 | 5,5 | 5 | 2613 |
| 11 | 9 | GM | Korobov Anton | UKR | 2687 | 5,5 | 5 | 2585 | |
| 12 | 47 | GM | Vaibhav Suri | IND | 2575 | 5,5 | 5 | 2577 | |
| 13 | 13 | GM | Sjugirov Sanan | RUS | 2663 | 5,5 | 5 | 2558 | |
| 14 | 23 | GM | Paravyan David | RUS | 2627 | 5,5 | 5 | 2536 | |
| 60 | GM | Hakobyan Aram | U18 | ARM | 2545 | 5,5 | 5 | 2536 | |
| 16 | 25 | GM | Khismatullin Denis | RUS | 2621 | 5,5 | 5 | 2526 | |
| 17 | 35 | GM | Deac Bogdan-Daniel | U18 | ROU | 2603 | 5,5 | 4 | 2647 |
| 18 | 32 | GM | Lupulescu Constantin | ROU | 2610 | 5,5 | 4 | 2640 | |
| 19 | 61 | IM | Sychev Klementy | RUS | 2545 | 5,5 | 4 | 2609 | |
| 20 | 29 | GM | Zhou Jianchao | CHN | 2615 | 5,5 | 4 | 2601 | |
| 21 | 41 | GM | Petrosian Tigran L. | ARM | 2595 | 5,5 | 4 | 2597 | |
| 22 | 42 | GM | Narayanan.S.L | IND | 2593 | 5,5 | 4 | 2593 | |
| 23 | 12 | GM | Maghsoodloo Parham | IRI | 2666 | 5,5 | 4 | 2562 | |
| 24 | 50 | IM | Yakubboev Nodirbek | U18 | UZB | 2569 | 5,5 | 4 | 2558 |
| 25 | 54 | GM | Abdusattorov Nodirbek | U18 | UZB | 2560 | 5,0 | 5 | 2673 |
| 26 | 45 | GM | Nihal Sarin | U18 | IND | 2578 | 5,0 | 5 | 2638 |
| 27 | 52 | GM | Petrosyan Manuel | ARM | 2564 | 5,0 | 5 | 2618 | |
| 28 | 72 | IM | Xu Yi | CHN | 2520 | 5,0 | 5 | 2617 | |
| 29 | 24 | GM | Grachev Boris | RUS | 2626 | 5,0 | 5 | 2530 | |
| 30 | 17 | GM | Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo | VEN | 2640 | 5,0 | 5 | 2526 |
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