Indiaâ??s Tania Sachdev becomes â??Queen of Asiaâ??, sets her eye for World

Sep 12: The transformation from a girl to a lady is quite evident in Delhi-based Grandmaster norm holder Tania Sachdev as she claimed the Asian Women’s championship crown after settling for draw with China’s Ju Wenjun in the final round of the championship at Tehran on Tuesday.

National champion Tania, who turned 21 just a few weeks back, has made a big leap by claiming the biggest title of her career, and booking a berth for World championship as maiden entrant.

Tania, a former Asian junior girl’s champion, tallied 6.5 points after the final round and won the championship, since she had a better tie-break score than tournament’s top seed Lufei Ruan of China, who also had equal number of points but had to be content with the runner-up position.

“I think this is my best result till date, I would even say this overshadows my GM norm a bit as this was a qualification event for the World championship with only three seats amongst so many strong players", Tania said after clinching the title.

Tania has now joined the continental championship’s roll of honour along with Rohini Khadilkar (1983), Anupama Gokhale (1985 and 1987) and Bhagyashree Thipsay (1991). It was Tania’s eighth round victory over second seeded Chinese Huang Qian.

The other Indian who featured in top-10 was Women Grandmaster Nisha Mohota. She got fourth position after convincingly beating Tan Zhongyi of China in the last round. Nisha completed her engagements with a tally of six points.

Final Standings (Top-3): 1 st Tania ( Ind), 2 nd Ruan Lufei (Chn), 3 rd Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie),

Other Indians: 4 th Nisha, 12 th Eesha, 19 th Aarthie, 21 st Swati, 28 th Amruta.