Vaishali wins chess tournament in Greece

R Vaishali on Tuesday won the Heraklion 2022 - 8th Fischer Memorial chess tournament, scoring seven points from nine rounds. She also secured a Grandmaster norm, her second, in the process and gained 20 rating points.

Vaishali, sister of teenage star R Praggnanandhaa, started with a draw against Greek GM Spyridon Kapnisis and a defeat at the hands of Oleg Korneev (Spain) before scoring five straight wins including one over the tournament top-seed Georgios Mitsis (Greece) in round six. She posted a win against France's Marco Materia in the ninth and final round to finish with seven points.

Vaishali and Israel's Yoav Milikov finished equal on seven points but the Indian won the title on the basis of a better tie-break score. Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand congratulated Vaishali and wrote on Twitter: "Congrats on a great performance at Heraklion Open getting her second GM norm ! Great to see our WACA girl win !!"