Ashvini and Tharushi shine for Sri Lanka
The Sri Lanka Women’s National team qualified to the second round of the Asian Nations Cup 2020 Online Chess Championships convincingly after they beat fourth seed Australia in the penultimate round and securing a draw with strong Singapore team in the last round.
Sachini Ranasinghe
Two consecutive victories by Ashvini Pavalachandran and Tharushi Niklesha paved the way for Sri Lanka to enter the second round of Super 8.
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Asian Chess Federation decided to hold the event online with the time control of 15 minutes + 10 seconds. The nine-round Swiss System event was played with 31 Asian teams participating in the Women’s Division. The top eight teams will play a knockout event to determine the winner.
Sri Lanka Women beat four countries — Kuwait (4-0), Palestine (4-0), Syria (3½ ) and Australia (3-1), drew with Bangladesh (2-2), Kyrgyzstan (2-2) and Singapore (2-2) and lost to Kazakhstan (0-4) and Lebanon (1-3) to score 11 match points out of a possible 18 to be placed seventh and enter the second round.
The Sri Lanka team consisted of Sachini Ranasinghe (WIM/Nf3 Chess Club) as captain, Nethmi Fernando (Women’s National Chess Champion/Girls’ High School, Kandy), Sandeepani Tharushi (Devi Balika Vidyalaya), Ashvini Pavalachandran (Wycherley International School) and Tharushi Niklesha (Visakha Vidyalaya). They will meet the Indian team in the quarter-finals on October 23.
The Sri Lanka Men’s team coomprising of Minul Doluweera (captain), Harshana Thilakarathne (IM/Maliyadeva College), Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage (National Chess champion/Ananda College), L.M.S.T. de Silva (FM/Nalanda College) and Theekshana Denuwan (Ananda College) were placed 17th out of the 38 Asian countries participated, but failed to qualify for the second round.
The Asian Nations Cup Online Chess Championships is conducted by the Asian Chess Federation will come to a close today for a prize fund of US$ 20,000.