Twenty-year-old Javokhir Sindarov is dominating the Candidates tournament, winning his fourth straight game in Cyprus on Saturday and reaching 5.5 points from six rounds.
He is now on a run similar to Veselin Topalov's 6.5/7 at the 2005 Fide World Championship.
R Praggnanandhaa, the lone Indian in the open section, drew against world No.2 Hikaru Nakamura, and trails Sindarov by 2.5 points.
Sindarov defeated Wei Yi with the Black pieces, in a game where the latter seemed to have a reasonable position before faltering due to questionable choices and running low on time.
Sindarov's preparation has been the subject of much admiration, with him being able to play almost any line with conviction.
There are still eight rounds to go, but with Sindarov on a roll, there might not be a lot of time for the rest to catch up.
Nakamura was battered by Sindarov on Friday after he lost his way on move 12.
Nakamura is currently at just 2.5 points, while Caruana, who was held to a draw by Andrey Esipenko, is 1.5 points behind Sindarov.
In the Women's Candidates, both Indian players—R Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh got their first wins of the tournament.
Kateryna Lagno, playing White, had little choice but to resign with Vaishali's Queen and rook laying siege on her King, while Bibisara Assaubayeva, down to four pawns versus six and a King with no refuge, too lost with White, against Divya.
The women's contest seems a lot closer with Ukrainian Grandmaster Anna Muzychuk, who was invited as a replacement for Koneru Humpy roughly a week before the start of the tournament, in a one-point lead over the rest of the field.
