Khanty Mansiysk: Former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine made it to the last-four after defeating Azerbaijan's Vugar Gashimov in the second game of the quarterfinals in the World Chess Cup here on Saturday.
After a rather tentative start, Ponomariov was a class act in the return game and did not give many chances to Gashimov after attaining the upper hand in the endgame.
However, the other Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk was not so lucky against Azerbaijani Teimour Radjabov, who scored the equaliser in exemplary fashion to force the match into the tiebreak stage.
Russian Champion Peter Svidler got the better of top woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary and earlier became the first player to make it to the semis without the tiebreaker slated for Sunday.
The other game between David Navara of Czech Republic and Alexander Grischuk of Russia ended as a draw but only after Navara came close to winning.
So, while Ponomariov and Svidler get a rest day before the semi-finals, the other two matches still hold the interest in this USD 1.6 million event that started with 128 players on a knockout basis.
It may be recalled that there were three Indians in the fray and Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta had a decently successful campaign reaching the last 32 before he was sent home by Chinese GM Xiangzhi Bu.
P Harikrishna lost the record round against Dmitry Jakovenko while Radjabov had beaten Parimarjan Negi in the same round.
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