Candidates Chess: Praggnanandhaa wins; draws for Divya, Vaishali

NAGPUR: Playing at an accuracy level of as high as 99% for almost five hours, gave R Praggnanandhaa a winning start in his second Candidates appearance. In the opening round, Pragg prevailed over experienced Dutch GM Anish Giri in Cyprus on Sunday.In the 5-hour, 20-minute contest, Pragg picked the Grand Prix variation of the Closed Sicilian defence, utilized the two minor errors from Giri to open his campaign with a perfect score.Earlier, on her Candidates debut, World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh started her campaign with a draw. She held higher-ranked Anna Muzychuk to a 35-move draw.R Vaishali survived time trouble to hold reigning threetime women’s world blitz champion GM Bibisara Assaubayeva.