Late at night March 19 learnt the names of the World Chess Championship’s semi-finalists. The results of 2 normal games provided the representatives of Russia – Alisa Galliamova and Svetlana Matveeva with tickets to the semi-final. Viktoria Cmilyte (Lithuania) and Xu Yuhua (China) snatched a victory on tie-breaks.

Galliamova managed to outplay the Georgian chess player Nino Khurtsidze with 2:0. In the second game she applied new continuation, recaptured the initiative and won a convincing victory. In the return match of the quarter final Svetlana Matveeva played back as well. Russian player managed to advantage and made Sebag defend. The French didn’t perform as a successful defender and soon black passed pawns provided the necessary result of the game and the match on the whole (1,5 : 0,5).

Viktoria Cmilyte of Lithuania managed to draw in the normal games against Maya Chiburdanidze. Playing white she benefited from her opponent’s inaccurate playing in the opening. With the growing advantage she reached endgame 2 pawns up and made the former World Women Champion capitulate. Xu Yuhua (China) and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (Russia) played without running a risk today. The Chinese player has more chances to win, but the Russian was able to carefully draw.

In tie- breaks Xu Yuhua and Viktoria Cmilyte displayed better self-restraint. Playing black they won the victory in rapid chess against Ekaterina Kovalevskaya and Maya Chiburdanidze respectively, return matches ended in a draw. This fact provided them with winning the matches with the same total score 2, 5:1,5 and the tickets to the semi-final.

To sum it up, the following pairs will keep on fighting: Galliamova – Cmilyte, Matveeva – Xu Yuhua. The first games of the final battles will take place on March 20.