NDTV

Turin, May 25: World number two Viswanathan Anand led from the front as the second seed Indian men's team stamped an emphatic 4-0 victory over Mongolia in the third round of the 37th Chess Olympiad here.

Anand, despite an obvious tiredness after the just concluded Mtel Masters in Sofia from where he arrived the previous night, made it clear that he would play to put the Indians back in the medal contention.

He planned a fantastic comeback for his team after its shocking first round defeat at the hands of Morocco.

Russia, China and Uzbekistan emerged as the joint leader on 10.5 points each while Greece, Ukraine and Poland are joint fourth now with 10 points apiece.

There are six teams in the next score group of 9.5 points and the Indian men, with their back-to-back 4-0 triumphs after the first round disaster are now in joint 13th spot with nine points in their bag while 10 rounds still remain in the biggest chess event of the world.

Anand started against Batchuluun Cegmed with 500 points rating advantage and white pieces that gave only a little hope to his opponent.

However, the Mongolian fought on bitterly in the French defense game in which Anand employed his pet Winawer variation.

The Indian ace won a piece in the middle game with some fine tactical squeeze and carved out a checkmating web to leave Cegmed hopeless. The game lasted just 34 moves.