If the second round was dominated by the white players, the roles were definitely reversed in the third round (but not really, since the three black players in this round were the ones with the white pieces in round two). In fact, the two and a half points that the black players collected could easily have been three.
Nils Grandelius got some pressure against Jon Ludvig Hammer in a Catalan opening. Had White played 22.Bd2 Bxd2 23.Rxc8 Rxc8 24.Rxd2 he could have continued to pressurise his opponent in the endgame. Instead he played the weak 22.Rb1 and soon Black had the better position. Hammer played strongly and got into a knight endgame a pawn up, which is normally easily won. He then blundered away the extra pawn with 34...a5 (34...Kb7 was better) but still had the better position due to his active pieces. If he had played 40...e5 41.fxe5 Kd5 he would still have had winning chances. Instead he allowed the white king to approach the centre after which a draw was inevitable.
As usual, Jonny Hector defended with the Slav Opening against Pia Cramling. After a lengthy theoretical debate, White had no opening advantage to speak of. If anything, Black was probably slightly better. After 40 moves White had three weak pawns (a4, f2 and h3) but she should still have been able to hold the position. Hector displayed some skillful maneouvring and in the end Cramling could not save the game. Her last mistake was 51.Nc1, it would probably have been better to play 51.Nec3 followed by taking on b4.
Tiger Hillarp Persson's game plan against Anish Giri was a complete disaster. He obtained the bishop pair but it came at too high a cost. He was both lagging in development as well as having several weaknesses because of all the pawn moves in the opening. Already after 17 moves, Giri could play the deciding piece sacrifice 17...Nhf4. He obtained fantastic compensation and after this it was only a matter of time before the white position would crumble completely.