China Dominate At Women's World Champs
The 2010 Women's World Chess Championship has reached the semi-final stage and three of the four players left are Chinese.
It could have been an all-Chinese semi-final, but top seed Humpy Koneru is still flying the flag for India after beating Ju Wenjun 1.5-0.5 in the quarter-finals.
In the other quarter-finals Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue beat Kateryna Lahno and Almira Skripchenko respectively by the same 1.5-0.5 score. Ruan Lufei (who put out current champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in the third round) proved her tie-break skills again to beat Harika Dronavalli.
The full quarter-final results:
| Name | FED | Elo | G1 | G2 | Rp1 | Rp2 | Bz1 | Bz2 | SD | Total |
| Rd 4 Match 1 | ||||||||||
| Ruan, Lufei | CHN | 2480 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 2½ | |||
| Harika, Dronavalli | IND | 2525 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1½ | |||
| Rd 4 Match 2 | ||||||||||
| Koneru, Humpy | IND | 2600 | 1 | ½ | 1½ | |||||
| Ju, Wenjun | CHN | 2524 | 0 | ½ | ½ | |||||
| Rd 4 Match 3 | ||||||||||
| Hou, Yifan | CHN | 2591 | 1 | ½ | 1½ | |||||
| Lahno, Kateryna | UKR | 2522 | 0 | ½ | ½ | |||||
| Rd 4 Match 4 | ||||||||||
| Zhao, Xue | CHN | 2474 | ½ | 1 | 1½ | |||||
| Skripchenko, Almira | FRA | 2460 | ½ | 0 | ½ |
So the semi-final draw pits the second and third seeds against one another (Humpy and Yifan), and the relative underdogs seeded 16 and 20 (Ruan Lufei and Zhao Xue) in the other semi.
Clockwise from top left, Humpy Koneru, Hou Yifan, Zhao Xue and Ruan Lufei
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Pictures from the official website.
