Women's World Championship Semi-Finals: Stefanova Advances, Ju Wenjun - Ushenina To Tiebreaks
Antoaneta Stefanova has been very successful in the 2012 Women's World Championship, going 8/10 in the classical games (and 2-0 in the tiebreaks), and with two days off before the final looks to be in great shape to regain the crown she won back in 2004. She beat Harika Dronavalli in their first game, yesterday, and played an excellent counter-attacking game today to draw from a position of strength. She seemed to be in some trouble early on in a Chebanenko Slav, but Dronavalli may have dithered a little with 13.Ra3 and 17.h3. Stefanova's counterplay with the f-pawn came just in time, and her piece "sac" for three pawns even gave her the advantage. Dronavalli's knight was cut off on b7 and her pieces were badly coordinated, and even Stefanova's time shortage wasn't enough. Finally, she offered a repetition, and Stefanova rightly accepted it, qualifying for the 4-game final match starting on Tuesday.
The other match saw a short draw between Ju Wenjun and Anna Ushenina, forcing them to play tiebreaks tomorrow. For Ju, this was her fifth straight match (out of five!) to go to tiebreaks, so it's nothing new for her. Watching the streaming video, she seems to have developed a bit of a cough (considering the frigid weather in Khanty Mansiysk - always below 32 degrees F/0 C, and regularly below 0 F - this isn't terribly surprising). So if she makes it to the final against Stefanova, it will be difficult: Stefanova doesn't seem to be sick, will have had two days off and many days off during the event, while Ju will have had a grand total of zero days off prior to the one and only official rest day on Monday. Stefanova has played 12 games, Ju will have played at least 26.
Anyway, she isn't there yet, and Ushenina, who has been almost as efficient as Stefanova (only one prior tiebreak), will have something to say about this. Today she spent a lot of time in the late opening, with Black in a Moscow Semi-Slav, and succeeded in achieving equality. Indeed, Ju's iffy 16.f4 may have even given Black some slight chances for an edge, but after seeing 18.Ne5 Ushenina was happy to accept her opponent's draw offer.
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