Leko wins Grand Prix title;
Anand finishes ninth

Grandmaster Peter Leko of Hungary won the inaugural FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament, defeating GM Alexander Grishchuk of Russia in the 'Sudden-Death' games of the final in Dubai on Monday.

Vishwanthan Anand blanked Russian Alexander Khalifman 2-0 in the tiebreak games to take the ninth place after being defeated in the second round by GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili of Georgia.

It was Anand's third straight victory in the tournament and, quite interestingly, he also lost only one match like the runner-up, Grishchuk, but since his defeat came in the second round itself, it threw him out of contention for a top place finish.

GM Alexei Shirov of Spain regrouped after losing the semi-finals on Sunday to beat former World junior champion GM Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria 1.5-0.5 in straight games.

Shirov finished third, while Georgiev, after putting up a spirited show earlier, had to be content with the fourth place.

Former World champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia finished fifth after beating Azmaiparashvili 1.5-0.5.

Karpov drew the first game with the black pieces and used his superior positional sense to good advantage in the second game.