Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand continued to struggle in his first open tournament in 23 years as he suffered a shock defeat at the hands of French Grandmaster Adrien Demuth in the fifth round of the masters section of Gibraltar chess festival here. Two former world junior champions - P Harikrishna and Abhijeet Gupta - emerged as co-leaders after the fifth round along with Etienne Bacrot of France and Markus Ragger of Austria on 4.5 points after impressive victories in the fifth round.

Harikrishna waited for his time and struck hard when the opportunity knocked against S P Sethuraman while Abhijeet was a class act against higher ranked Zoltan Almasi of Hungary.

The two overnight leaders Bacrot and Ragger played out a draw between them with five rounds still remaining in the 185000 Pounds Sterling prize money tournament.