By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
ZAMBIA’S Elias Musonda has been knocked off the top after losing his fifth round match to Abdelouhab Ouaret of Algeria at the ongoing Africa Junior Chess Championship at the Golden Peacock Hotel in Lusaka.
In a fifth round match that pitted the two leaders, unbeaten Musonda was checkmated by the Algerian who now holds sole leadership of the tournament on 4.5 points while the Zambian slides to fourth on 3.5 points.
Musonda’s loss capped a miserable day for the leading Zambians in the Under-18 boys’ category as the three lost and will look to re-energise themselves from the whole days’ rest they got yesterday with today’s sixth round games only starting at 16:00 hours.
Egyptian Andro Wagdy, an International Master (IM) who was widely expected to win the championship, met his match as he again lost but this time to fellow Egyptian Mohamed Zayan, who now moves into second position with four points.
Also on four points is Zimbabwean Sifiso Ncube who beat South African Claudio Alessandro.
In today’s sixth round, Musonda plays Zayan on Board-Two with Board-One hosting a tussle Ouaret and second-placed Ncube while the other impressive Zambian, Sekelani Tembo plays South African Candidate Master (CM) Kenyon Padayachee.
Meanwhile, in the women category, the Zambians continued with their fall on the table as Elastridah Yombwe was defeated by Algerian FIDE Master (FM) Asma Hamlaoui and was overtaken by Faith Chilambe, who defeated Edith Kagona of Malawi.