The team including Deepak Poddar, VM Lal, Ram A Agarwal and Ashok Vaidya were lying second in their group with nine more ten-board matches to be played over the next two days in the round-robin event. Their most creditable win, 23-7, was achieved over the highly fancied Auby's team from Sweden.

Nagpur's Agarwala comprising SK Agarwala, Basant K Mohota, D Majumdar, A Sadhu and S Saha scored 84 VPs and were in fourth position.

Mumbai's Kejriwal comprising Ratanlal Kejriwal, Avinash Gokhale, Bimal Sicka and Sheela Mahajan were also in fourth position with 80 VPs.

The other Indian teams have still to put their act together. The points and position of the teams are: Das and Nadar (75 VPs each) seventh, Shivdasani (73) eighth and Ruia (71) tenth.

Twelve Indian teams are among the 233 participating in the open team championships. The teams have been divided into 16 groups with nine groups having 15 teams and seven with 14 teams. Four teams from each group will qualify for the round of 64 to be played on a knock-out basis.

The Europeans were dominating the championships with Switzerland's Yalcin having the best record with 115 VPs out of the maximum of 125 after five matches.

In the women's team championships for the Luis Vutton McConnel Cup, Indian team Deora with 52 VPs were placed 10th while Patel with 37 VPs was at the 13th position out of 14 teams in their respective groups after four matches.

Australian team captained by Maria Earhart had scored the highest tally of 90 VPs while Great Britain (82) and US (80) were leading their respective groups.