On Tuesday in the ninth round at Wijk aan Zee, Abhijeet Gupta defeated Ukrainian tailender Oleg Romanishin and maintained an impressive finish in Group 'C'.

With this win, obtained with total of 48 moves with white, Abhijeet's tally has risen to 5.5 points and now he has come to the third place in the 14-player field.

Following this, he claimed a central pawn on the 32nd move and pressed home the advantage with a well-placed bishop and an active rook, Abhijeet finally called the shots.

Meanwhile in Group 'B', top seed K. Sasikiran had to face defeat from Czech David Navara, who beat him in 25 moves, and thus Sasikiran continued his poor form. Sasikiarn had to give up when his opponent presented him with an unavoidable checkmate.