Krishnan, Preethi win Natl u-17 chess titles

P Saravana Krishnan beat his Tamil Nadu statemate and overnight leader R A Pradeep Kumar in the eighth and final round to snatch the boys’ title in the Makhanlal Haldar Memorial 18th National Junior (under-17) Chess Championships, which concluded at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in Puri today. Rajkumar Preethi made it a glorious ‘double’ for Tamil Nadu by winning the girls’ crown. She drew her last round duel with Statemate Pon N Krithika to top the table with 6.5 points. The top three finishers in both categories qualified to represent India in the World under-18 championship next year. The top two seeds in the championship failed to live upto their reputation with Swapnil Dhopade and Padmini Rout finishing seventh and fifth among boys and girls respectively. A total of Rs 80,000 was distributed among the top 15 boys and girls. FINAL STANDINGS (Top 10): Boys: 1. PS Krishnan (TN), 2. RA Pradeek Kumar (TN), 3. S Srinivas (AP), 4. M Shyam Sundar (TN), 5. Debashis Das (Ori), 6. K Priyadarshan (TN), 7. SS Dhopade (Mah), 8. A Upadhyaya (Ori), 9. P Karthikeyan (TN), 10. Diptanu Das (WB). Girls: 1. R Preethi (TN), 2. PN Krithika (TN), 3. N Anusha (AP), 4. K Manasa (Kar), 5. Padmini Rout (Ori), 6. G Shalmali (Mah), 7. P Uthra (TN), 8. K Shruthi (Kar), 9. Sukanya Dutta (WB), 10. Pallabi Roy (WB).