Divya Deshmukh defeats Harika Dronavalli in all-Indian clash to make her way to FIDE Women's World Cup semifinals
Much like Saturday's 31-move encounter, both players avoided significant risks on Sunday, though their 60-move duel lasted nearly twice as long before ending in an agreed draw, clearly conserving energy for the decisive tiebreaks.
On Sunday, Koneru Humpy played out a fine counterattacking game to hold International Master Yuxin Song of China and march into the semifinals.
Having won the first game with white pieces, Humpy was only a draw away from reaching the last four stage, and she achieved it after a keenly contested second game against the Chinese.
With fourth place assured, Humpy will get two chances to reach the top three which will also guarantee her a place at next Women's Candidates' tournament for which the top three from here qualify.
Grandmaster R Vaishali ran out of luck as she lost from slightly better prospects against former world women's champion Zhongyi Tan of China. Vaishali who had drawn the first game lost by the same score as Song.
Apart from Tan, top seed Tingjie Lei of China also made it to the semifinals at the expense of Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia.
Yuxin Song had to win to stay in the hunt against Humpy and her preferred choice was the Jobava's London, an opening that is fancied these days by many strong Grandmasters. Humpy equalised without much ado but then sacrificed two pawns in tandem to give white some hopes.
However, Song's pawn structure was really broken with three pawns standing on a sole file and Humpy found her counter play in the centre. Recovering the pawns Humpy was happy to lead the game to a level rook and pawns endgame. Song tried in vain for 53 moves before splitting the point.
(With agency inputs)
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