At the end of ninth round, Prasannaa has eight points to his credit. Prakash Ram and Daksh Goyal were following him with seven points.
On top board, Prasanna shocked top seed IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni in 53 moves. On the second board, Prakash Ram downed Indrajeet Mahindrakant in 52 moves whereas Daksh Goyal outwitted Boricha Yohan in 37 moves.
Results (round 9): FM Prasannaa (8) bt IM Kulkarni Vikramaditya (6), Prakash Ram (7) bt Mahindrakar Indrajeet (6), Boricha Yohan (6) lost to Daksh Goyal (7), Arpan Das(6) bt Badole Shaunak (5), Pal Vedika (5) lost to Das Susobhit (6), Srinivasa Rao G.V.(5), lost to Saksham Singh (6), Vivaan Vijay Saraogi (6) bt Gawai Siddhant (5), Nirgun Keval (6) bt Jagreet Misra (5), Dishank Sachin Bajaj (6) bt Shirodkar Aayush (5).