Bengaluru: Arjun Erigaisi arrived in New York with one fairly challenging job at hand – win the rapid event to top the Fide circuit and qualify for the Candidates tournament. After Day 2 and nine rounds of play in the rapid event of the World Rapid and Blitz tournament, the 21-year-old Indian finds himself among the leaders. He’s now at 7/9 points, sharing the lead with Volodar Murzin, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alexander Grischuk. Four more rounds remain to be played. After Sunday’s rest day, the blitz event will take place over the remaining two days.

In the four rounds played on Friday, Arjun won two games and drew the other two. His game against Duda, who was part of newly-crowned world champion Gukesh’s team in the run-up to the Candidates, turned out to be a tense affair and ended in a draw.

Defending champion and world No.1 Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the tournament. He announced his decision to do so after he was fined for breaching the tournament dress code and asked to change out of his jeans for Friday’s remaining rounds. He refused to comply with the request and in response, Fide did not pair him for Round 9.

Carlsen had a forgettable start to the tournament, finishing day one with a 50% score. On Day 2, he had wins against Aryan Tari and Brewington Hardaway, and drew GM Daniel Dardha and finished his campaign in the rapid event with 5/8, before deciding to withdraw.

Among the brightest performers so far has been 18-year-old Murzin, who’s been on a terrific run in the tournament. On Friday, he drew against Arjun, Anish Giri and Leinier Dominguez Perez before upsetting Hikaru Nakamura in the final round on Day 2.

The youngest participant of the tournament – Argentinian International Master, 10-year-old Faustino Oro, had a difficult start and is placed at 4.5/9.

In the women’s section, it’s a three-way tie at the top after eight rounds with reigning classical world champion Ju Wenjun and India’s Harika Dronavalli and Koneru Humpy at 6.5/8 points. Harika had two wins on Friday while Humpy staged a remarkable comeback, winning all four games on Friday after starting out with 2.5/4 points on day one.