Divya seeded second in Abu Dhabi Intl Chess Festival

Mrudul, Raunak, Sankalp also in Indian contingent
By Paritosh Pramanik

WOMAN International Master Divya Deshmukh has been seeded second in the 26th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival which is going to be held at Abu Dhabi from August 2-10.
The championship will be held in three categories—Open, Masters and Juniors.
As per seedings on chess-result.com website, Divya got the second seed in the juniors category in which 50 Indians are also taking part.
Divya will also be playing in the Masters category along with Woman Candidate Master Mrudul Dehankar, who has leaped to 2190 elo rating points, International Master Raunak Sadhwani and Sankalp Gupta. They all will aim to gain experience of playing against hosts of Grandmasters.
Over 600 players from 60 countries will be taking part in this prestigious tournament in which 155 will be from India.
All the three categories will be of nine rounds. Matches in Open and Masters categories will begin from August 2 while the Juniors category will start two days later (Aug 4).
Divya will be high on confidence after she created history by winning hat-trick of titles in Under-15 Nationals recently at Chennai. She continued her rich form and within 10 days of that title finished third in the Women’s National Championship at Madurai.
Mrudul, too, will be brimming with confidence going into the competition as she has recently cleared all three WIM norms and needs to play just four players from other federations to be coronated with Woman International Master title.
She would be hoping to play as many foreign players as she can in the competition.
“I am eagerly waiting for the competition. The recent performance has given me a lot of confidence,” Mrudul told ‘The Hitavada’.
Playing against Grandmasters won’t put Mrudul under any pressure as she had locked horns against them earlier also.
“Last time (2017) I played in the same category (Masters) so there won’t be any added pressure. I will take it match by match and hope I play against players from other countries more so that I get the WIM title,” said Mrudul.
Divya, after continuously playing for last six months, took two days break from chess and attended her school, Bhavan’s BPVM, Civil Lines.
The ‘break’ would help Divya in the Abu Dhabi competition, felt her mother Dr Namrata Deshmukh.
“She is playing continuously for the last six months. She is really tired at present. She got two days’ break after returning from Madurai. But she had to attend her school. I think this little break would help her get fresh for Abu Dhabi meet,” said Dr Namrata.
Raunak, who is playing in Europe for past couple of months is presently participating in a tournament in Switzerland. He will directly reach Abu Dhabi from there to take part in the prestigious competition.
Divya, Mrudul and Sankalp will leave for Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.