Ganguly, Bakre and Satya share the lead

Indian players took firm control of the boys' section in the Asian Junior (under-20) chess championship with most of them defeating overseas rivals to grab the top spot after the fourth round in Bombay on Saturday.

National junior champion and second seed Surya Sekhar Ganguly, former Asian junior champion Tejas Bakre and national junior No 3 S Satyapragyan defeated their respective opponents from abroad to share the lead with 3.5 points each.

Ganguly defeated strong Iranian International Master (IM) Ghaem Meghani, rated only ten points behind the Indian, in 44 moves while Bakre and Satya scored over highly rated Filipino Mark Paragua and Bangladesh IM Enamul Hossain respectively.

Top-seeded IM P Harikrishna drew his game with S Kidambi, also an IM and the national junior runner-up, on the top board after 30 moves.

The two were jointly tied for the second spot with three points each along with Qatar's Al Sayed Mohammed, Said Rakhimbov (Kazakstan) and Valay Parikh (India).

In the girls' section, second seed Koneru Humpy subdued fifth-seeded Tania Sachdev, who had shocked International Woman Master and fourth seed Swati Ghate on Friday, in 33 moves to lead the field with four points, a clear one point ahead of three others, including Tania.

But top-seeded world under-18 champion Aarthie Ramaswamy slid to an upset defeat against China's Yu Ting which has severely hampered her hopes of winning the title. This was the Chennai-based Aarthie's second loss in the event.