Bhubaneswar: Woman FIDE Master Saina Salonika of Odisha added another leaf to her hat when she got her maiden International Master (IM) norm at the Goa International Grandmasters chess tournament, Tuesday at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium here.
Saina got the norm after her ninth and concluding round match which she drew against Niranjan Navalgund. Earlier in the tournament, Saina won four of her matches including the one against GM Babiy Olga of Ukraine and drew with three higher-ranked players among who were GMs Debasis Das and P Karthikeyan. Saina also gained 85 rating points in the process.
Saina finished the tournament with 5.5 points. Goa CM Pramod Sawant handed over the IM norm to Saina in a glittering closing ceremony. It must be stated here that Saina was out of the game for last eight months due to her Xth standard CBSE exams where she scored 97.40 per cent marks.
PNN