Surya Shekhar Ganguly came up with an inspiring performance to defeat Ukrainian Andrei Volokitin in the opening round of 'A1' group of the Aeroflot International Chess tournament in Moscow on Thursday.

On a day where Woman Grandmaster Dronavalli Harika was extremely lucky to beat Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian of Armenia, International Master S Vijayalakshmi also displayed top form to outwit GM Denis Khismatullin of Russia.

The higher-ranked Indians, second seed Krishnan Sasikiran, P Harikrishna and Parimarjan Negi, played out draws in the premier event that carries a total prize pool of US $100,000.

The general strength of the 'A1' group could easily be gauged on the opening day itself as only 29 out of 44 games ended decisively, brining up 29 players to share the lead together.

And amongst these, Ganguly's victory was quite satisfying for the Indian as he gave Volokitin a taste of his own medicine.

The Ukrainian is known worldwide for his deep opening preparation but for once he was caught off balance despite producing a reasonably new idea over the board.

Much to Volokitin's dismay, Ganguly had prepared for everything just too deep with his black pieces and the timing of the new move was only start of his analysis.