Saturday saw a mixed day for India at the FIDE World Cup in Goa with junior world champion Pranav V and the 42-year-old veteran Surya Shekhar Ganguly among the winners for the hosts in their first games of the first round. Meanwhile, Divya Deshmukh, who is the only woman to be competing at the event, tasted an opening day defeat as did the troika of international masters Aronyak Ghosh, Himal Gusain and Neelash Saha.

With the top grandmasters from India like world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Vidit Gujrathi entering only from the second round at the FIDE World Cup, there was plenty of attention on Deshmukh. Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis, Deshmukh’s opponent, admitted he was taken aback by how many cameras were trained on their board when he turned up to tak

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