Two thirds of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid preliminary stage have been completed. With five rounds to go, Armenia's Levon Aronian and China's Ding Liren are sharing the lead on 7/10, ChessBase reports.

Aronian defeated World Champion Magnus Carlsen to take the lead in the tournament.

Some strong players, such as Daniil Dubov, Alireza Firouzja and Peter Svidler are currently in the bottom half of the standings table. They will have to fight hard on Monday, June 28 if they want to move on to the knockout stage of the tournament.