By IANS
Moscow : Krishnan Sasikiran allowed a winning chance to slip and crashed out of the World Cup at Khanty Mansiysk, Russia.
Pitted against former World champion Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov, the Indian Grandmaster, who lost the first game, needed to win the second game Tuesday of the pre-quarter finals to stay on in the competition.
It seemed that Sasi might just pull off the win in second game and once again go into the tiebreaker as he had in his previous three rounds. But the tenacious Ponomariov held on for 82 moves and snatched a draw that carried him to a 1-5-0.5 win and enter the quarterfinals.
Ponomariov was on the brink of a defeat but he demonstrated a strong will and stubbornness in an inferior position and managed to survive.
Magnus Carlsen also survived in a difficult position. His experienced rival Michael Adams of England played a very powerful game, but the little Magnus was unbreakable. A draw allowed the Norwegian advancing to the next stage.
Five players moved into the quarterfinals, while three other places will be determined by tiebreaks.
Alexei Shirov’s task looked the simplest against Vladmir Akopian of Armenia. He needed to play for comfortable draw to move up, but still Shirov did not look for simple solutions. He sacrificed a piece and was close to creating a mating attack but managed only a draw.
Serjey Karjakin of Ukraine knocked out Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania with a win in second game, while Ivan Cheparionov beat Wang Yue of China and moved into quarters.
The three clashes going into the tiebreaks were Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia against Lev Aronian of Armenia, Gata Kamdsky (US) against Peter Svidler of Russia and Evgeny Bareev against fellow Russian Evgeny Alekseev.