European Women’s Ch.: Fataliyeva, Garcia and Piddubna share the lead

15-year-old Piddubna joins the lead

The top pairings in the fifth round of the European Women’s Championship in Rhodes brought no big surprises. All the games on the first five boards ended drawn, including the top match between the two leading players, Marta Garcia Martin and Ulviyya Fataliyeva, who had won all their games up to that point.

Marta Garcia Martin

This gave Bozhena Piddubna the opportunity to catch the leading duo after her victory over Sabina Vega. The Ukrainian is only fifteen years old and will now face Ulviyya Fataliyeva in round six. Marta Garcia will play Lela Javakishvili from Georgia.

Of the nine German participants, Dinara Wagner and Lara Schulze have had the best start to the tournament. After the fourth round, the two national-team players were in 24^th and 25^th place, with 3 points each, already a whole point behind the leaders.

In round five, both had opponents from Poland. Dinara Wagner drew against Alicja Sliwicka, while Lara Schulze lost her game against Aleksandra Maltsevskaya. With 3½ points, Dinara Wagener is now 23^rd and, as the fourth seeded player, is performing below expectations.

Meanwhile, after a good start with two draws and a win against much higher-rated opponents, 9-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan from England suffered two defeats in the last two rounds.

In her game against Jovanka Houska, however, the young player put up a fight before being mated on move 131.

Bodhana Sivanandan and Jovanka Houska in a deserted playing hall

Jovana Eric (Serbia) 0 – 1 Yuliia Osmak (Ukraine)

Analysis by Klaus Besenthal

Top seed Yuliia Osmak beat Jovana Eric in the first round, but has been defeated twice since then — she now stands 1½ points behinds the leaders, with 3 points to her name

Standings after round 5

…182 players

All available games

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