NETHERLANDS: World champion D Gukesh drew his second-round game against Slovenia's Vladimir Fedoseev, while Leon Luke Mendonca endured his second straight loss, going down to Uzbekistan's Nodirbek Abdusattorov at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament on Sunday.

After an intense first round clash against Anish Giri, Gukesh, playing with black pieces, opted for a solid approach against Fedoseev.

Despite appearing optically worse, the Indian neutralised Fedoseev’s advantage and steered the game into a balanced rook-and-pawn endgame, leading to a draw.

Mendonca, on the other hand, had a tough outing.

He chose to play the French defence and faced some new ideas by the Uzbek who has been constantly working to get positions wherein, he can out-calculate his opponent.

The early middle game saw both players castling on opposite flank and it was Mendonca’s king that came in to scrutiny soon.

Abdusattorov is a fierce attacker and he pounced on his chance to score his first victory. This was the first game to end in the day.

Caruana was the pick of the day as he gradually crushed second best Dutchman Jorden van Foreest right from the early middle game.

It was an innocuous London system that Caruana started with and then capitalised on an unforced error to win a pawn which in the end proved decisive.

Results, round 2: Masters: Vladimir Fedoseev (Slo, 1) drew with D Gukesh (Ind, 1.5); Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb, 1.5) beat Leon Luke Mendonca (Ind, 0); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 1.5) beat Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 0.5); Alexey Sarana (Srb, 1) drew with Wei Yi (Chn, 1).

Challengers: Divya Deshmukh (Ind, 0.5) drew with Nguyen Thai van Dam (Cze, 1.5); R Vaishali (Ind, 1.5) drew with Miaoyi Lu (Chn, 1.5); Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb, 1.5) drew with Nodirbek Kazybek (Kaz, 0.5); Benjamin Bok (Ned, 1.5) beat Ediz Gurel (Tur, 1); Arthur Pijpers (Ned, 0.5) drew with Aydin Sulemanli (Aze, 1).