The story for Indian boxers continued on similar lines as the first session on day six of the AIBA World Championships as two more boxers reaches the semi-final and two bowed out of the competition in New Delhi on Tuesday.
After Mary Kom and Lovlina Borgohain in the first session, Sonia Chahal and Simranjit Kaur enter the semi-finals with contrasting wins in the 57kg and 64kg weight category respectively.
With the wins, India now have four boxers who will fight for a place in the finals of their respective categories when the semi-finals begin on Thursday at the KD Jadhav Indoor Stadium.
Also read: Mary Kom, Lovlina assure India two medals at Boxing Worlds; two boxers bow out in first session on day six.
The two boxers who were ousted in the second session were Pinki Jangra in the 51kg and Seema Punia in the +81 weight categories.
Pinki suffered a loss to Chol Mi Pang of North Korea while Poonia failed to go past China’s Xiaoli Pang in the last bout of the day.
The most impressive performance of the day came from Sonia who defeated Yeni Casteneda of Colombia, making good use of her long reach and quick punches.
“It was important to move away from her because she was very strong physically and her punches were landing with force so I decided to keep my distance,” she said after the bout.
Sonia did get hit with a right handed punch and an underhook in the first round and was surprised by the power of the Colombian but changed her approach in the second round.
She moved away from her after hitting a combination and waited for her opponent, shorter in comparison to Sonia, to come in and try taking her shot.
Throughout the remaining rounds, the technique helped Sonia outclass the Colombian and confirm her first world championships medal, which is also her first major international medal.
Simranjit also assured her first world championships medal at the senior level but she had to work hard for a win against Ireland’s Amy Broadhurst, who suffered a point deduction in the final round.
The Punjab girl looked tired during the bout given her tough bouts in the first and second rounds but managed to go past the Irish boxer.
Her win was sandwiched between the losses of Pinki and Seema. The former was beaten by the sheer pace of Pang who gave little chance to the Indian to stay in the bout.
Apart from her quick movement, Pang was hard to hit as Pinki was shorter and had to move very close to Pang to get a good punch.
Seema, India’s final boxer of the session, was also beaten by an unanimous decision in a bout that was one-sided.
This was also, incidentally, her first bout of the tournament.