IT’S all over for April Joy Claros of the Philippines.
Claros lost both her quarterfinal matches to Laysa Latifah of Indonesia and bowed out of contention in the girls 14-under category of the FIDE World Cadets and Youth Rapid Chess Championships.
The 13-year-old incoming high school student of Far Eastern University-Diliman put up a brave stand in the second of their two-game encounter, but failed to capitalize on a slight positional advantage to suffer another setback to her Indonesian opponent.
Latifah also defeated Claros in the FIDE Asian Continental qualifying stage held over a week ago.
Although seeded only 14th out of the 16 qualifiers with an ELO of 1459 , Claros made her presence felt in the online competition when she toppled third seed Martyna Starosta of Poland in their round-of-16 duel.
The pride of Angeles City, Pampanga defeated Starosa in their Armageddon-style playoff.
Michael Concio, Jr. was the only other Filipino campaigner who advanced to the world stage.
But Concio dropped both games to Renjie Huang of China in the Open 16-under category.
The 14 other Filipino players, including Open 12-under champion King Whisley Puso, failed to make it past the Asian Continental qualifying tournament.
Puso topped the Open 12 years old and under competition, but was disqualified by FIDE for “alleged fair play violation.”
