Grandmaster-elect Sahaj Grover defected Mark Lapidus of Estonia in the 11th round of World Junior chess championship at Athens in Greece. With his sixth victory besides three draws, Grover took his tally to 7.5 points and this was an excellent recovery for him after a loss in the previous round against top seed DingLiren of China. Alexander Ipatov of Turkey joined Richard Rapport of Hungary in the lead on nine points after the former won against Serbian Aleksandar Indjic. Rapport played out a draw with Nils Grandelius of Sweden. Samvel Ter-Sahakyan of Armenia holds the sole third spot on 8.5 points and he is followed by five players including Ding Liren with eight points apiece. With just two rounds remaining, Grover shares the ninth spot and needs two victories to be in with a chance. The Indian next plays Yaroslav Zherebukh of Ukraine who is more than 100 points above him in ELO ratings. Debashish Das, who earlier made a GM norm in the championship, bowed out of contention with his second successive loss. Zherebukh outclassed Das in all departments of the game. In the girls' championship, the Indian challenge ended after Bhakti Kulkarni went down to Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia. Firefighters in Spain's Canary Islands are still struggling to contain a blaze on La Gomera described by a local official as an ecological disaster. Five planes and seven helicopters are supporting firefighters on the ground. More than 4,000 hectares of La Gomera's total area, equivalent to 11 per cent, has been affected by fire since last Thursday. Officials said so far the fire has destroyed 39 homes and about 5,000 people were evacuated. Morocco is sending a firefighting plane to help Spain tackle the fire.