World Champion Viswanathan Anand bounced back as he jumped to joint second spot at the end of the fourth round after outplaying Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain in the fourth Bilbao Final Masters.
The lone rest day in the Brazilian leg gave enough time to Anand to recover from an unexpected loss in the third round against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine.
Although Anand's opponent Vallejo was near to a draw, the Indian's skills proved far superior. Meanwhile, Ivanchuk took another giant leap forward by defeating Levon Aronian of Armenia.
With his third victory on the trot in the category-22 super tournament being played under a soccer-like scoring system, the 42-year old Ivanchuk (10 points) stretched his lead to a huge 5 points over nearest rivals Anand and Aronian.
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