The World Cup is a knock out event with two games under normal time control followed by Rapid or blitz games to determine the winner.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand, S P Sethuraman and Vidit Gujarathi had already made it to the second round with victories under normal game itself.
Anand was superior in all departments of the game. The Alapin opening by the Malaysian did not bother the Indian ace much as he gained easy equality early in the opening.
The Indian ace was pegged back by an opening round loss against Hikaru Nakamura of United States and then suffered another debacle against Levon Aronian of Armenia in the third round.
Anand played his last white game in the tournament against Vachier-Lagrave and had a small advantage but the Frenchman was quite up to the task in defence and steered the game to a draw.
With his fourth draw in five games combined with a brilliant victory over Fabiano Caruana of United States in the previous round, Anand garnered 3.5 points out of a possible six.
For Anand, the fourth draw serves him good as the Indian ace has not really been in great form in super events off late.
With three draws from as many games, Anand would need to post some victories if he intends to finish on the podium.
Anand holds an excellent record against Svidler but the Russian was simply too cautious having lost the first round of the tournament.
Viswanathan Anand will have to come out with an impressive performance in the super tournament that also has Magnus Carlsen of Norway starting as the top seed.
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