Grand Swiss 2025: R Vaishali registers her second consecutive win; Gukesh draws

The defending champion, Grandmaster Rameshbabu Vaishali, started her 2025 Grand Swiss Tournament with two consecutive wins in the first two rounds at the Silk Road EXPO in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Vaishali defeated Eline Roebers of the Netherlands with the black pieces on Friday to continue her winning momentum and rise to the top of the standings alongside Olga Bedelka of Austria.

In the open category, Vidit Gujrathi and Gukesh Dommaraju, who had started their campaign with wins, played out a draw in the second round and slipped slightly in the standings.

The defending champion Vidit played out a solid 38-move draw with Abhimanyu Puranik in a high-quality match where both players had an accuracy of 98 percent.

Meanwhile, Gukesh could not convert his advantage from the Queen's pawn opening and played out a 46-move draw with Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus of Turkiye.

The other top Indian grandmasters, R. Paraggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi, are finally back on winning ways after playing out a draw in their opening round matches.

Arjun got the better of Haik Martirosyan of Armenia with the black pieces, whereas Praggnandhaa got the better of Ivan Zemlyanskii of Russia with the white pieces.

India has a few more positive results in the open category, as both Nihal Sarin and Leon Mendonca also claimed their first victory of the tournament in the second round.

With this, seven Indian players, now at 1.5 points after two rounds, trail the leaders by just half a point and will aim to maintain their momentum in this long 11-round tournament.