Chess
57th Biel Festival: Vaishali draws in round four, becomes world number 9
Vaishali drew with Marc Andria Maurizzi of France at the Biel Chess Festival to enter the top 10 rankings in the world among women.
Indian chess player R Vaishali enters world top 10 in women's Classical Chess Ratings. (File Photo)
Grandmaster R. Vaishali achieved another milestone in her career by entering the world's top 10 female players with a significant jump of five places in the live classical chess ratings on Friday.
She reached this milestone after drawing against Marc Andria Maurizzi of France in the fourth round of the 57th Biel Chess Festival. This was a good result for her as she managed the draw with the black pieces.
Vaishali has now joined the experienced Koneru Humpy as the second Indian female player in the current top 10 world rankings. Humpy is currently sitting in 7th position in the world rankings.
The young Indian has now joined the club of 2500+ ratings, gaining an increment of 21.6 points to reach a rating of 2509.6, whereas Humpy has 2530 rating points currently.
As the tournament is underway, Vaishali will be aiming to gain more rating points from this event. She is currently in second position on the leaderboard of the Biel Challenger with 18.5 points.
Saleh Salem of UAE is currently leading the event with 19.5 points and will face Vaishali in the next round. This matchup could turn the tables at the top of the leaderboard, which currently has a gap of just one point.
