India who have so far garnered nine points will now have to play on the lower boards.

Indian women struggled to a 1.5-1.5 draw against 38th seeded Latvia in the fourth round to tally 6.5 points.

Earlier, in the third round, Indian men had held 12th seeds Bosnia-Herzegovina to a 2-2 draw while their women counterparts were not as successful and went down to 15th seeded Cuba 1-2.

In the men's side, Indians Pravin Thipsay and Krishnan Sasikiran lost to Grandmasters A Federov (ELO 2600) and Y Shulman (2520) respectively.

Thipsay got into a bad queen-and-rook ending in modern defence after losing a pawn and lost in 51 moves while Sashikiran too lost a couple of pawns in the Kings Indian defence after accepting a weak-pawn structure in 53 moves.Abhijit Kunte, who played on the second board against Alexi Alexandro (2595) wasslightly better in the Ruy Lopez but then the rook-and-knight ending had no prospects for him.

Anup Deshmukh played a short draw with Kochetkov in 21 moves in the Benko Gambit.

The Indian women like their male counterparts made a good start in the fourth round when Bhagyashree Thipsay built up a good position against Reiznice D of Latvia on the top board in the English opening. But the Indian after coming close to winning an exchange bungled the attack to lose in 29 moves.

Pallavi Shah held T Voronova to a 37-move draw in the French defence on the second board. Young Swati Ghate played gallantly to restore parity for India when she beat I Berzina after winning a couple of pawns in the middle game.In the men's section, Russia-I and Russia-II emerged sole leaders with 12 points each. Russia-I recorded a crucial 2.5-1.5 win over leaders United States while Russia-II trounced Fyrom 4-0.

USA, Ukraine, Netherlands and Germany trailed in the second position with 11.5 points each. Ukraine and Germany scoredidentical 2.5-1.5 wins over Yugoslavia and Argentina respectively.

In the women's section, Romania led the table with 10 points after four rounds. They blanked Mongolia 3-0. Yugoslavia, who were leading till the previous round were held to a 1.5-1.5 draw by 19th seeds Armenia.