Leinier – the World Blitz Chess Champion last year – struggled up to the second round as he needed five tie-break matches to defeat unknown Australian player David Smerdon (2525).

Caruana is a young talented Italian player who already eliminated Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon (2619) in the first round of this tournament. Earlier this year he won Group B of the strong annual Dutch tournament of Wijk aan Zee.

In some unexpected results on Tuesday, Finnish Tomi Nyback beat Russian Peter Svidler; Czech Viktor Laznicka downed another Russian, Alexander Morozevich; Philippine Wesley So defeated Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk; and Russian Konstantin Sakaev beat Azerbaijan’s Teimor Radjabov.

The second match of Round 2 takes place on Wednesday.