In the ninth and penultimate round of the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters, played yesterday at the Caleta Hotel, Vassily Ivanchuk retained his sole lead after a quick draw with Gata Kamsky and his nearest rival Richard Rapport (Hungary) lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Ivanchuk has 7½ points out of 9 going into the final round, and immediately behind him on 7 points are Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), last year's winner Nikita Vitiugov (Russia), Gata Kamsky (USA), Aleksey Dreev (Russia), Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Mohammed Al-Sayed (Qatar) and Zhao Xue (China), who currently leads the race for the women's top prize after a remarkable five straight wins.

With nine rounds played, some players already have cause to celebrate as FIDE (World Chess Federation) title norms can be awarded based on nine rounds of play. Five players have qualified on that basis: Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) and Lela Javakishvili (Georgia) have achieved full grandmaster norms, while Natalija Pogonina (Russia), Bogdan-Daniel Deac (Romania) and Pedro Ramón Martínez Reyes (Venezuela) have achieved the norm set for the international master title. Other players may yet qualify for title norms in the final round on the basis of the full ten rounds.

In the ninth round Stephen Whatley of Gibraltar lost to the FIDE Master Milan Kandic of Serbia and remains on 3 out of 9. His overall performance is still positive in terms of his international rating and he stands to gain a few points. The other Gibraltar competitor Alan Gravett won his ninth round game against Geoff Hermes of England and he too has 3 points and is on course for a slight improvement in his international rating.

The final round of the competition kicked off this morning at 11am.