Capitalising on an optical blunder by Ayan Allahverdiyeva of Azerbaijan, top seed Divya Deshmukh nosed ahead of the field in the World Junior Girls’ chess championship. 

The Sicilian Najdorf came in handy for the top-rated Indian, who is seeking her maiden world junior title and is by far the favourite. Divya got what she wanted out of the opening, an open white king and the dynamics that help her calculation skills.