Batumi (Georgia): The Indian men and women's teams made winning starts to their campaign in the 43rd Chess Olympiad here Tuesday.
The women team blanked New Zealand 4-0 with only Tania Sachdev facing some real troubles while the trio of Koneru Humpy, Eesha Karavade and Padmini Rout recorded easy victories.
On a day when Viswanathan Anand was rested, Krishnan Sasikiran dropped a half point on the fourth board but that was only after P Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi and B Adhiban had secured victories on the top three boards to ensure a win for the team.
The Indian teams got two match points following the victory as the day produced some individual upsets but the higher ranked teams prevailed.
Not a single match was drawn and this could be a record of sorts too. In the open section as many as 64 teams out of 184 scored a perfect 4-0 start and another 17 won conceding just a half point.
Amongst the favourites, United States and Russia romped home with 4-0 wins but third seeded China could only manage a 3-1 score with Li Chao losing to Aithmidou Mohamed-Mehdi of Morocco.
Fourth seed Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Armenia were the other fancied teams that dropped a half point apart from India.
In the women's section of the 43rd Chess Olympiad, the story was no different. With 151 participating countries here, 55 won with a perfect score but the biggest individual upsets came for the strongest teams as top seed Russia and third seed China dropped a half point each against Costa Rica and Tajikistan respectively.
For the Indian men, Harikrishna routed Ernesto Giron in quick time and Adhiban had little troubles to win as white against Daniel Arias.
Gujrathi showcased his skills at the expense of Ricardo Ernesto Chavez but Sasikiran faced some troubles and had to split the point with Carlos Burgos Figueroa.