Former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria struck back and levelled the score against Anna Ushenina of Ukraine in the fourth game of the World women's chess championship.
The comeback victory by the Bulgarian not only ensured that she would remain in the match but would also force a tiebreaker of games of shorter duration in which Stefanova starts as a favourite once again.
Sharing a victory each, the two contestants ended the regular four-game match with a 2-2 score.
Sitting pretty with a full point lead and needing just a draw to be crowned the world women's champion, Ushenina simply could not withstand the pressure and crumbled in the crunch game in no time from a healthy position out of the opening.
Showing steely nerves, Stefanova is now back on even keel in the play-off games in which firstly two rapid games will be played with 25 minutes to both players.
With a ten seconds increment after every move is played and if still tied two ten-minute games will be played with an additional increment of 10 seconds after every move.
The players will play two five-minutes games should the deadlock persist and then an Armageddon game will be played with five minutes for white and four for black and white must win.
While many had written 2004 champion Stefanova off after the debacle in the third game of the match, the Bulgarian proved herself to be a great force showing some deep positional sense.
For the records, Ushenina went for the Slav defence and apparently had a tenable position when she went wrong with her planning on move 19. Stefanova pounced on her chance in no time and was well on top after her next move itself.
As it happened, one mistake followed the other and just two moves later the Ukrainian was staring at a dead-lost position. The formalities were completed by Stefanova in quick time.
Like the World championship match earlier this year between V Aannd and Boris Gelfand of Israel, the Women's championship is also being decided under tiebreak games. It may be recalled that Anand and Gelfand had finished with a 6-6 score before the Indian ace won the rapid tiebreaker to retain the championship.
The stakes are high as apart from the winners cheque of $60000, the winner also gets to play a match with Yifan Hou of China in the next World championship match in 2013. The pundits favour Stefanova again preferring experience over youth.
Going by the performance here, Stefanova has not played any tiebreaker yet in the championship this year while Ushenina has been involved in two rapid tiebreakers before reaching the final.