* Grandmaster Alisa Galliamova took silver at the Women's World Chess Championship, held in the West Siberian city of Yekaterinburg, losing to Xu Yuhua of China in the four-leg finals series, 0.5:2.5.
* At the $3.45 million Nasdaq-100 Open tennis tournament in Miami, Florida (March 22-April 2):
- Russian tennis player Nikolay Davydenko, seeded 5 for the tournament, advanced to the fourth round of the men's singles by defeating Marcos Baghdatis (25) of Cyprus, the runner-up at the 2006 Australian Open Grand-Slam-series tournament, 2:6, 6:2, 7:5
- Igor Andreyev (24) advanced to the third round of the men's singles by defeating George Bastl of Switzerland, 6:4, 6:4, and will later face compatriot Dmitry Tursunov who beat Juan Carlos Ferrero (14) of Spain in the second round, 6:3, 7:6
- Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, seeded 4 for the tournament, advanced to the fourth round of the women's singles by defeating Maria Elena Camerin of Italy, 6:2, 7:6
- Yelena Dementieva (6) cruised into the fourth round of the women's singles by defeating Michaella Krajicek (Netherlands), 6:0, 6:1
- Nadezhda Petrova (5) advanced to the fourth round of the women's singles, making a comeback in the remaining two sets after a first set loss to Jamea Jackson of the United States, 4:6, 6:0, 6:0
- Svetlana Kuznetsova (12) fought hard to beat former world No.1 Martina Hingis (24) of Switzerland in the third round of the women's singles, 3:6, 6:1, 7:6 (11-9)
- Anastasia Myskina (10) beat Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, 6:3, 7:5, to advance to the women's singles fourth round
- Anna Chakvetadze advanced to the fourth round of the women's singles by defeating France's Virginie Razzano, 6:4, 6:0
- Mariya Kirilenko (20) beat Ukraine's Viktoriya Kutuzova in the third round of the women's singles, 6:1, 6:4
- Elena Vesnina failed to advance to the fourth round of the women's singles losing to Tatiana Golovin (22) of France, 2:6, 3:6
- Elena Likhovtseva (15) failed to advance to the women's singles fourth round losing to Ai Sugiyama (21) of Japan, 6:3, 5:7, 0:6
* Yelena Sokolova, Russia's defending champion and the 2003 world silver medalist, finished fourth in the ladies' competition on the last day of the World Figure Skating Championships in Calgary, Canada. The Russian team, which did not include the top performers who won three golds and one bronze in the four events at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, took one bronze medal in the four events.
* At the Biathlon World Cup 2005/2006 Round 9 in Holmenkollen, Norway:
- Russian Anna Bogaliy-Titovets won silver in the women's 10 km pursuit, 51 seconds behind Kati Wilhelm. Both biathletes performed perfectly on the shooting range. Anna Carin Olofsson of Sweden finished third overall missing three targets.
- Russian Sergei Rozhkov took the bronze in the men's 15 km mass start with perfect shooting, falling just 2 seconds behind Czech Roman Dostal, and 14 seconds behind 2005/2006 World Cup winner Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway, who each missed two targets.
* Russian volleyball champions Lokomotiv Belgorod won bronze in the European Champions' League 2005/06 tournament in Rome, Italy, by defeating compatriots Dinamo Moscow, 3:1 (25-19, 21-25, 25-20, 25-20). Italy's Sisley Treviso took the title by defeating Iraklis Thessaloniki of Greece, 3:1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-23, 26-24). Lokomotiv and Dinamo lost their Saturday's semifinals to Iraklis (2-3) and Sisley (0-3), respectively.
* Russian grandmaster Alexander Morozevich (world No. 11) currently holds first place in the $260,000 Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament being held in Monaco. The top world players compete in separate rapid chess and blindfold round-robin mini-matches with prizes for each event, alongside the best-combined score. The tournament will run through March 30.
Standings after Round 8 (combined score):
1 Alexander Morozevich (11) - 11 points
2 Viswanathan Anand (3) - 10.5 points
3 Francisco Vallejo (54, Spain) - 9.5 points
4-5 Alexander Grishchuk (12, Russia), Peter Leko (7, Hungary) - 8.0 points
6-8 Boris Gelfand (9, Israel), Loek Van Wely (54, Netherlands), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, world No. 2 and defending FIDE world champion) - 7.5 points
9-10 Levon Aronian (5, Armenia), Pyotr Svidler (4, Russia) - 7.0 points
11 Peter Heine Nielsen (66, Denmark) - 6.5 points
12 Vasiliy Ivanchuk (8, Ukraine) - 6.0 points
* Russian and Spanish grandmasters, Alexei Dreyev and Aleksei Shirov, currently share the top spot at the VII Anatoly Karpov international chess tournament being held in Russia's Siberian Khanty-Mansiisk region and featuring the world's leading players. The $13,000 tournament will run through March 28.
Standings after Day 5:
1-2 Alexei Dreyev (Russia), Aleksei Shirov (Spain) - 5 points
3-5 Ruslan Ponomaryov (Ukraine), Yevgeny Bareyev, Vadim Zvyagintsev (all Russia) - 4.5 points
6-7 Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Yevgeny Nayer (Russia) - 4 points
8 Sergei Rublevsky (Russia), - 3.5 points
9- Alexander Onishchuk (United States) - 3 points
10 - Viorel Bologan (Moldova) - 2 points
Day 8 results:
Bareyev - Bologan - 1:0
Ponomaryov - Zvyagintsev - 0.5:0.5
Onishchuk - Nayer - 0.5:0.5
Dreyev - Rublevsky - 0.5:0.5
Sokolov - Shirov - 0.5:0.5
* Metallurg Magnitogorsk, winner of the regular season in Russia's SuperLeague hockey championships, defeated Lada Tolyatti in the two away matches of the best-of-five quarterfinals series, 4:3 and 2:1, to advance to the semifinals.
Third and fourth leg quarterfinals results (host teams listed first):
Lada Tolyatti (10) - Metallurg Magnitogorsk (1) - 3:4, 1:2 (Magnitogorsk wins the series 3:1)
Salavat Yulayev Ufa (9) - Ak Bars Kazan (3) - 1:3 (Ak Bars wins the series 3:0)
CSKA Moscow (5) - Avangard Omsk (4) - 2:3 (Avangard wins the series 3:0)
Khimik Voskresensk (6) - Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (2) - 5:3, 2:3 in overtime (Lokomotiv wins the series 3:1)
* Russia's soccer Premier League Week 2 results (host teams listed first):
FC Rostov - FC Moscow - 4:0
Luch-Energia Vladivostok - Lokomotiv Moscow - 1:1
CSKA Moscow - Shinnik Yaroslavl - 5:1
Amkar Perm - Zenit St. Petersburg - 1:3
Spartak Nalchik - Spartak Moscow - 2:2
Saturn Ramenskoye - Torpedo Moscow - 0:0
Tom Tomsk - Dinamo Moscow - 1:0
Krylya Sovietov Samara - Rubin Kazan (set for March 27)
Team standings after Week 1:
1- CSKA Moscow - 6 points/goal difference 6-1
2 Tom Tomsk - 6/3-1/
3 Zenit St. Petersburg - 4/4-2
4 FC Rostov - 3/5-2
5 Rubin Kazan - 3/1-0 (after 1 game)
6 Krylya Sovietov Samara - 3/1-0 (after 1 game)
7 FC Moscow - 3/1-4
8 Spartak Moscow - 2/3-3
9 Luch-Energia Vladivostok - 2/2-2
10 Saturn Ramenskoye - 2/1-1
11 Spartak Nalchik - 1/2-3
12-14 Dinamo Moscow - 1/1-2
12-14 Lokomotiv Moscow - 1/1-2
12-14 Torpedo Moscow - 0/1-2
15 Shinnik Yaroslavl - 1/2-6
16 Amkar Perm - 0/1-4
* Dinamo St. Petersburg beat Lokomotiv-Rostov Rostov-on-Don, 89:76, in an away game of the Russian men's basketball national championships regular season.
Russian men's basketball SuperLeague Division A standings:
1 CSKA Moscow - 42 points (after 22 games)
2 Khimky Moscow Region - 39 (22)
3 Dinamo St. Petersburg - 38 (21)
4 UNICS Kazan - 36 (20)
5 Dinamo Moscow - 35 (21)
6 Dinamo Moscow Region - 33 (21)
7 Ural-Great Perm - 32 (20)
8 Lokomotiv-Rostov Rostov-on-Don - 30 (22)
9 Spartak VGUES Primorye - 29 (23)
10 CSK VVS Samara - 26 (21)
11 Sibirtelekom-Lokomotiv Novosibirsk - 26 (21)
12 Spartak St. Petersburg - 26 (22)
13 Universitet-Ugra Surgut - 24 (21)
