Only two rounds left to be played at the European Team Chess Championship 2025 in Batumi, Georgia, and Ukraine and Poland remained in the sole lead in Open and Women’s sections (respectively).
Today’s 7th round was opened by Mrs. Meline Arakelian, Ambassador of Kingdom of the Netherlands to Georgia, who played the first ceremonial move in the game between GM Anish Giri and GM Ruslan Ponomariov.
The top board match between the Netherlands and Ukraine finished with the final 2.5-1.5 score in favour of the Ukrainians. GM Igor Kovalenko (UKR, 2669) continued his phenomenal tournament, and defeated GM Loek Van Wely (NED, 2630). With the performance of 2956, Kovalenko is currently the best fourth board in the championship. The other three games finished in solid draws.
After winning the match against Hungary, the team of Azerbaijan got closer to the leaders, and scores 11 match points, while Ukraine scores 13 match points. Netherlands, Romania, England and Serbia tie for the third place, scoring 10 match points each.
The Women’s section leader – Poland, lost the match against Ukraine, but still kept the sole lead. The gap between the leader and the runner-up is now only 1 match point.
IM Alina Kashlinskaya (POL, 2450) scored for Poland against IM Yuliia Osmak (UKR, 2464), but GM Anna Ushenina (UKR, 2407) and GM Natalia Zhukova (UKR, 2305) won against IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya (POL, 2394) and IM Oliwia Kiolbasa (POL, 2388). The game on the fourth board between GM Monika Socko (POL, 2356) and WFM Bozhena Piddubna (UKR, 2265) finished in a draw.
Germany and Ukraine now trail the leader by one match point, as Germany scored a convincing 3-1 win today against the Romanian team.
All results, rankings and pairings can be found here.
The penultimate 8th round starts tomorrow at 15:00 (local time). Live video broadcast with commentaries by GM Alojzije Jankovic and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili can be found on the ECU TV platform or ECU YouTube channel.