Before the final day of the World Blitz Championship in Alma-Ata, the Russian grandmasters had good chances for medals.
However, as in the case of rapid, when domestic chess players were one step away from awards, it was not easy to stay in the top three.
Only Polina Shuvalova succeeded, who won bronze.
Moreover, after 9 matches, she was in the lead together with Valentina Gunina, ahead of Tan Zhinyi by half a point.
But on Friday, two defeats - from compatriot Alexander Kosteniuk, who also claimed medals, and Humpy Koneru - dropped her to third place.
The key was the loss to the representative of India in the 16th round, because until this meeting Shuvalova kept the first position.
As the Russian woman admitted, she won only bronze because of fatigue.
“It's just a lot of rounds, and in the end I blundered with Koneru - there was a normal position, but I lost an offensive game.
At the end, there were also chances to win and take second place, but fatigue accumulated.
Of course, I would like to win a trophy - after all, I was in the lead for most of the tournament.
It's a shame that I lost a couple of games in the end.
In any case, this is a good result for me - last year I was fourth.
This time I entered the top three, which means we are moving forward, ”TASS chess player quotes.
The Russian Chess Federation was satisfied with Polina's result.
According to Andrey Filatov, the head of the FSR, in such tournaments you gain the necessary experience and in the future Shuvalova will improve in the end.
“At the finish line, the Russian woman also fought hard for the highest awards, but, unfortunately, two defeats did not allow her to take first place.
I am sure that Polina will draw the necessary conclusions and will continue to delight Russian fans with her victories,” Filatov said.
The more experienced 35-year-old Humpy Koneru, unlike Shuvalova, on the contrary, gave the strongest ending, she won 7 out of eight games and brought one to a draw.
This allowed the grandmaster to eventually take second place, although the tournament began for her with two defeats in a row.
The new world blitz champion Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan made a no less impressive breakthrough.
On Friday, she also took over in seven matches, and lost in one to Shuvalova.
The second day of the competition turned out to be a failure for Gunina: four defeats in a row threw the grandmaster far back and she failed to rise above the 19th position.
She ended her performance with another loss - Zhansae Abdumalik from Kazakhstan.
Other Russians made a lot of mistakes too, Kosteniuk and Goryachkina had four zeros in 8 rounds, and, respectively, 15th and 22nd places.
Zhinyi unexpectedly turned out to be below the line of winners.
The world champion in rapid took only the fourth line.
She lost to Assaubayeva and Koneru.
In men, everything at first developed well for Ian Nepomniachtchi.
On the first day of the competition, he scored the same points as Magnus Carlsen.
And in the long-awaited personal confrontation, which finally took place on Friday, he turned out to be stronger than the Norwegian with white pieces.
The game ended on the 40th move.
By the 16th round, Jan was among the leaders.
However, this was followed by two draws and a defeat from the Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
And only all the victories in the remaining matches could return the grandmaster to the top three.
But the desired result was not achieved.
Nepomniachtchi outplayed only Alexander Grischuk, with Vladislav Artemiev he broke up with the world, and completely lost to Daniil Dubov.
As a result, only 12th place.
Interestingly, Dubov again became the best of the Russians.
He finished sixth.
At the same time, the grandmaster has only two defeats and a five-match winning streak.
However, the chess player again, as in rapid, was let down by the abundance of draws.
Well, Magnus Carlsen won the title for the sixth time.
He was again not perfect: in addition to Nepomniachtchi, he lost to his compatriot Alexei Sarana.
But all other parties won and won the title with a one-point advantage.
According to the Norwegian, the incredible mountains of Kazakhstan gave him energy.
“I think it helped that I was skiing in the mountains.
The air of Alma-Ata helped me, added energy.
It certainly is.
Beautiful mountains that are very close to the city, it inspired me.
Yesterday it seemed that I did not have enough energy, but I managed to survive.
Today I played some really weak games and a lot depended on Nakamura's performance, luckily he wavered.
There were a lot of crazy games, but today I felt better than yesterday.
I am glad to win the final victory,” Carlsen admitted.
Nakamura took second place in the tournament, and Hayk Martirosyan closed the top three.
Anish Giri faltered in the end - six draws in a row threw him to fourth place.