Pinay Frayna stuns Aussie opponent

Filipina Janelle Mae Frayna scored a shocking upset by beating Australian Woman International Master (WIM) Emma Guo in the fifth round of the SDAT-RAMCO 50th World Junior and 29th Junior Girls Chess Championships at the Hotel Vijay Park in Tamil Nadu, South India on Saturday.

The 58th-seed Frayna (ELO 1875), who hails from Legaspi City, Albay, defeated no. 41 WIM Guo (ELO 2029) using the disadvantageous black pieces to score 2.5 points on account of two wins, two loses and a draw in five outings.

The soft-spoken Frayna, member of the multi-titled Far Eastern University-Fern, Quezon City team, climbed into a share of 26th to 44th places that also includes her sixth-round opponent Woman Fide Master (WFM) Abigail Romero Echeverria of Ecuador, who bowed to WFM Juliana Terao Sayumi of Brazil.

After crushing WIM Nizami Qizi Kazimova Narmin of Azerbaijanin in the fourth round, Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Olga Girya of Russia continued her winning ways by demolishing WGM Nazi Paikidzi of Georgia to post her fifth straight win in as many rounds and remain on top.

Meanwhile, Filipino Mari Joseph “MJ” Turqueza yielded to Udeshi Aditya of India to stay at 2.0 points for a share of 75th to 98th places together with Zhuo Ren Lim of Malaysia, his sixth-round opponent.

Lim is coming a big win against Lima Santos Hugo of Portugal.

IM Axel Rombaldoni of Italy is lording the Open category with 5.0 points after fives games.

He secured back-to-back wins against GM Tamir Nabaty of Israel in the fourth and GM Lopez Ivan Salgado of Spain in the fifth round.

The winner here is eligible to receive a GM title in the open section and WGM title in the girls’ section directly.

An additional bonus awaits the gold medalist in the girls event, as she will also receive an IM norm.

Players scoring the same number of points as that of the gold medalist will also be eligible for GM or WGM norms.  /correspondent MARLON BERNARDINO