Viswanathan Anand meets Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk's in 5th round

Linares (Spain) (PTI): Rejuvenated after a day's rest, world champion Viswanathan Anand will hope to crash through Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk's defence in the fifth round of the Magistral Ciudad De Leon Chess tournament here.

Trailing joint leaders Levon Aronian of Armenia and Alexander Grischuk of Russia by just half a point following his two victories, one loss and a draw, the Indian ace will hope to bridge the gap in the first half of the 14-round tournament when he sits behind black pieces against Ivanchuk.

Ivanchuk, who has drawn all his games so far, is joined by Magnus Carlsen at the fourth place in the eight-players double round robin tournament with two points each.

Debutant Lenier Dominguez of Cuba stands sole sixth on 1.5 points while Teiumour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and Wang Yue of China are at the bottom with just one point each.

For Anand, this has been an excellent event barring the disaster he suffered at the hands of Aronian in round two. The Indian was apparently having a huge advantage when the disaster occurred in the form of an optical blunder resulting in his lone loss in the tournament so far.