The Kosintsev sisters ended their third game in a quick draw, Other participants continued their fights. As a result all other games finished with a score. In the game Muzychuk-Lahno playing white Anna Muzychuk attacked the opponent's king and rather quickly led the game to a victory. Alisa Galliamova and Elina Danielian won their first games of the tournament playing against Antoanetta Stefanova and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya respectively. Humpy Koneru did not start her tournament successfully but could improve her situation today by winning the Chinese chess player Ruan Lufei. The Women's World Chess Champion Hou Yifan won the ex-World Women's Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and strengthened her leading positions in the tournament. Anna Muzychuk and Nadezhda Kosintseva have one point below the leader.

See the comments of GM Vitaly Kiselev

Anastasia: The game between Kosintseva sisters ended unexpectedly…

Tatyana: All our games end with a draw. To say the truth last time when we played at the World Blitz Championship against each other, we decided to play because it was a blitz. We were interested to see what will happen. As a result we had 1:1. I won one game and Nadya won 1 game as well, so we anyway had an equal score. But we don’t play against each other in classical chess.

Anastasia: I remember in 1997 you had a resultative game. Who won at that time?

Nadezhda: Yes, right, it happened at the Championship U-12 in St. Petersburg.

Tatyana: Nadya won at that time.

Anastasia: What has been changed since then?

Nadezhda: In fact we have ever played only two games against each other: that Russian Championship U-12 in Petersburg and another Russian Championship U-20. At the Championship U-20 we were outsiders, both of us had few points. A draw would have not changed the situation. We decided that probably one of us would have had another chance to fight for better place and prize. As a result, as far as I remember, we were playing a very long game and finished the last. Anyway we made a draw. After these agonies we decided that we will not play against each other anymore. We will sort things out at home and at the official tournaments a draw is a law. 

GM HOU YIFAN - IM ALISA GALLIAMOVA

Ruan Lufei (2479) - Danielian Elina (2521)

Lufei: I think I'm very lucky today. On the first time control I thought it was not winning I had just slightly better position but I didn't see any winning plan. Later on my opponent made a mistake by playing 28...hg. After that I might have had slight chances to win. I didn't have much time before the first time control but I didn't have any chance to lose and I didn't need any time for the last moves. At the end she had a lack of time, so I tried to press as much as I could.

Of course it's really good here, I would say it's nearly perfect, including the room and service. So I'm very happy to be here. It's my first time here in Rostov-on-Don. I haven't been to Russia for nearly 3 years because I didn't participate in many tournaments last years. I came back and I see everything is new.