Sakshi Chaudhary advances to quarters of boxing’s Asian Olympic Qualifiers

AMMAN (Jordan): Former junior world champion Sakshi Chaudhary (57kg) stunned Asian silver-medallist and fourth seed Nilawan Techasuep of Thailand to enter the quarterfinals of the Asian Olympic Qualifiers for boxing here on Wednesday.

The two-time youth world champion Indian, who is only 19, prevailed in a split verdict against the Asian Games bronze-medallist in an engrossing second-round bout after both the boxers got openinground byes.

Sakshi will next be up against Korea’s Im Aeji on March 9. Making the semifinals would assure her of a spot in the Tokyo Olympics scheduled in July-august this year.

The opening round was fought on even keel for most part but Sakshi managed to be ahead of her fancied rival in a split verdict.

Techasuep came out all guns blazing in the second round and caught Sakshi offguard with a barrage of combination straight punches.

The Indian was pushed to the backfoot by the aggressive Thai, whose left jab was particularly eye-catching.

But the judges ruled in Sakshi’s favour in a 3-2 second round verdict. In the final three minutes, Saskhi’s counter-attacks proved enough to trump Techasuep’s consistent aggression.

“I stuck to the strategy of counter-attack through the bout and I think she couldn’t handle it. My coaches had told me not to deviate from the plan and I didn’t,” Saskhi said after the bout.

On Tuesday, the seasoned duo of Gaurav Solanki (57kg) and Ashish Kumar (75kg) advanced to the pre-quarterfinals in the men’s draw.

Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Solanki defeated two-time Kyrgyz national champion Akylbek Esenbek Uulu, while Asian Championship silver-medallist Ashish got the better of Taiwan’s Kan Chia-wei. Ashish will square off against Kyrgyzstan’s Omurbek Bekzhigit Uulu, who has been seeded fourth.

Solanki, whose CWG gold was in the 52kg division, will be up against top-seeded Uzbek Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov, who got a bye into the second round.

Mirzakhalilov is the reigning world champion in this weight category besides being a gold-medallist at the 2018 Asian Games as well as the Asian Championships.

Sakshi will next be up against Korea’s Im Aeji on March 9. Making the semifinals would assure her of a spot in the Tokyo Olympics