Jeffery Xiong eliminated Anish Giri, the No 2 seed from the Netherlands, at the $1.6m World Cup in Siberia this week and the Texan, 18, now has an outside chance to emulate the legendary Bobby Fischer by becoming a world title candidate as a teenager.
The 128-player knock-out at Khanty-Mansiysk reaches its round of 16 this weekend, and the chess superpowers Russia, USA and China provide more than half the survivors.
In contrast, India, who began with 10 qualifiers and high hopes, saw them all knocked out by the third round, while the three Englishmen Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane failed to survive beyond round two.
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