Shreyas Royal, 13, is in contention to score England’s youngest ever grandmaster result in the Bavarian Open at Tegernsee, Germany. Royal won his first five games, the last two against highly rated GMs, before drawing quickly by repeated moves in Thursday’s sixth round against Azerbaijan’s Eltaj Safarli, the 2616-rated No 4 seed in the giant 530-player tournament.
The Greenwich teenager’s fourth- and fifth-round victories were both impressive. In round four he defeated GM Bobby Cheng, 25, the 2016 Australian champion and No 8 seed, in a complex game where Royal’s passed a6 and d7 pawns proved decisive.
