European Club Cup 2025 R2: Favorites prevail
21/10/2025 - The top seeds of 40th European Chess Club Open and 29th Women tournaments scored a smooth victory in Round 2. Bayegan Pendik chess sports scored 5-1 victory over SK Dunajska Streda without conceding a single loss. GM Nihal Sarin won his first game of the event against IM Zsolt Rigo using a nice tactic. Ippotis Rhodes chess club got 0-6 whitewashed by Alkaloid. GM Arjun Erigaisi, GM Aravindh Chithambaram and GM Abhimanyu Puranik were among the winners for Alkaloid. The defending champion, Novy Bor defeated De Sprenger Echternach 5-1. However, GM Pentala Harikrishna suffered a loss against GM Andrey Sumets. Among the Women, CE Gambit Bonnevoie lost to Cercle d'échecs de Monte-Carlo by 1-3. FIDE Women's World Cup 2025 winner, GM Divya Deshmukh scored her first win. Crvena Zvezda went down against the defending champion, Tajfun SK Ljubljana. IM Vantika Agrawal won her second game in-a-row. Round 3 starts today at 3 p.m. local time, 5:30 p.m. IST. Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar