Viswanathan Anand's [Images] absence hurt the Indian team badly as they could manage only a 2-2 draw against Uzbekistan in the ninth round of the 37th Chess Olympiad.

The second seed Indian men came up with another mediocre performance and missed out on a victory over the lower ranked Uzbeks despite Krishnan Sasikiran, P Harikrishna, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda enjoying a better rating than their counterparts.

With just four rounds to go, the Indian men are clearly struggling in joint 10th spot with just 22.5 points and badly need some big wins in their kitty.

Meanwhile, the Chinese men went rampaging against Georgia and scored a surprising 4-0 victory to jump to the second spot behind Armenia who continued its impressive run to down defending champion Ukraine by a 2.5-1.5 margin.

A rude shock awaited the top seed Russians as France [Images] fourth board Laurent Fressinet downed Sergey Rublevsky to lead the team to an emphatic 2.5-1.5 victory after the first three boards ended in draws.

As things stand in the biggest chess spectacle, Armenia retained its sole lead on 26.5 points while a full point adrift of them now are the Chinese men with 25.5 points in their bag.

The victory against Russia [Images] propelled the Frenchmen to a deserving 3rd spot on 24.5 points, a half point ahead of the top seeds and United States who share the fourth spot.

In the next round India meet Cuba and Anand is expected to return to the top board.

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