Playing on the first board with white pieces, Sagar, playing Karthik Vishwanathan of Jamnabai Narsee, had only to draw. He did this without much difficulty and ended the tournament with 9.5 points.

Vaibhav Saxena of Fr Agnel, playing on the second board against Amar Kamat of Chandrakant Patkar in a game between two of the most promising youngsters in the city, got the better of Amar despite playing with black pieces.

Vaibhav tied for the first place with Sagar, but finished second on progressivescores. This is the third year in a row that Vaibhav has had to settle for the second position despite tying with the winner.

Placings
Boys U-10: 1 Rohil Bhat of Abhinav Vidyalaya 9.5 pts (60.5); 2 Vishal Shah of St Joseph's 9.5 pts (57.5); 3 Aakarsh Rai of Model English 8.5 pts (59.5); 4 Sanju Malaikal of St Stanislaus 8.5 pts (54.5); 5 Ishan Nadkarni of Fr Agnel 8.5 pts (49.5); 6 Anuj Moralkar of Fr Agnel 8 pts (55); 7 Siddharth Nambiar of Fr Agnel 8 (53.5); 8 Sahil Mujumdar of Gokuldham 8 pts (52.5); 9 Ashwin Ganapathy of Fr Agnel 8 pts (52.5); 10 Nitesh Bhat of Manjunath Vidyalaya 8 pts (51.5); 11 Pratik Shenoy of SES Thane 8 pts (50.5); 12 Viviktesh Agwan of Sau AK Joshi Thane 8 pts (50).

Boys Open: 1 Sagar Sadavarte of Navi Mumbai 9.5 pts (58.5); 2 Vaibhav Saxena of Fr Agnel 9.5 pts (57.5); 3 Chandrashekhar R of Swami Vivekananda 8.5 pts; 4 Amar Kamat of Chandrakant Patkar 8 pts (55); 5 Devendra Sathe of Fr Agnel 8 pts (53.5); 6 Omkar Kulkarni of Srirang Vidyalaya 8 pts(52.5); 7 Atharva Moralkar of Fr Agnel 8 pts (52); 8 Sameer Thakkar of Jankidevi 8 pts (52); 9 Wesley Falcao of Carmelite Convent 8 pts (52); 10 Anuj Pandit of Vile Parle Mahila Sangh 8 pts (51.5); 11 Vinaykumar M of Abhinav Vidyalaya 8 pts (50); 12 Archis Awate of Swami Vivekananda 8 pts (49.5).

Anup sole leader
IM Anup Deshmukh, with seven points, was the sole leader at the end of the penultimate round of the KD Publicity Open chess tournament being held at the Andheri Sports Complex, today.

Results (7th round): PP Pande (5) lost to Anup Deshmukh (7); JM Utarid (6.5) drew with Rashmin Pulekar (5.5); Shashikant Kutwal (6) drew with S Shastrabudhe (5.5); Avinash Awate (5.5) drew with Vinod Solanki (5.5); Prasad Ghate (5) lost to A Subramaniam (5.5); V Makwana (4) lost to Akash Khalwadekar (5); S Pitale (5) bt Prasad Deshmukh (4); DK Desai (4.5) drew with VN Ghate (4.5); DG Bhandarkar (5) bt Samarsinh Parmar (4); Y Dishen Singh (5) bt Anil Arora (4).

GM Police triumph
GreaterMumbai Police scored a comfortable 4-2 victory over Nobody Sports Club in the BHA Senior Division hockey league at the Mahindra Stadium, today. Tahir Shaikh (2), Rajan Lad and Mahendra Bhosale accounted for the policemen. Sunil D'Sa and Santosh Shetty reduced the margin.

Imran, Intikhab qualify
Maharashtra's Imran Yusuf and Intikhab Ali entered the main draw of the JS Pereira Memorial All-India ranking tennis championship in contrasting style today at Bandra Gymkhana. The event is being co-sponsored by Kotak Mahindra Mutual.

While Ali advanced with a comfortable 6-0, 6-1 win over Pratik Sharma of Uttar Pradesh, Yusuf fought hard after losing the opening set tie-breaker to post a 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-0 win over compatriot Arpan Lakhani in a match that lasted a marathon two and a half hours. The other state players who advanced to the main draw are Abhijit Muzumdar, Kunal Bhojwani and Ishraque Gulrays.

Results (final qualifying round): Vivek Satyajit (Del) bt Rohan Dalvi (Mah) 6-0, 6-2;Abhijit Muzumdar (Mah) bt Vimal Kirthi (TN) 6-2, 6-2; Kunal Bhojwani (Mah) bt Deepak Rajput (Mah) 6-0, 6-3; Abhisek Tamhani (Mah) bt Chetan Desai (Mah) 7-5, 7-5; Ishraque Gulrays (Mah) bt Sunny Asaldekar (Mah) 6-1, 6-2; Imran Yusuf (Mah) bt Arpan Lakhani (Mah) 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-0; Intikhab Ali (Mah) bt Pratik Sharma (UP) 6-0, 6-11; Mayur Vasant (Mah) bt Joshua Fonseca (Mah) 6-0, 6-0.