The script of the boxing Nationals at Chandigarh bore an air of familiarity as the Services boxers dominated proceedings on day two.
However, SSBC’s Vishwamitra, the silver medal winner at the Nations Cup held in Serbia, won his opening bout against Madan Pratap Anakapalli from Andhra with a 5:0 unanimous verdict to register his presence in 48 kg.
A Naoba Singh, teammate of Vishwamitra, a bronze medallist at the same event in Serbia, defeated Aditya Gaut from Maharashtra 3:2 in what was the best bout of the morning in the 52 kg weight class.
In middleweight (75 kg), Lakhmani from SSCB, a silver medal winner at the Nation’s Cup earlier this year, won his first bout against Abhimanyu Singh of Rajasthan when the referee stopped the contest in the second round.
As for the women’s bouts, there were as many as nine RSC verdicts with half a dozen clear decisions on points told the story of one-sided contests among the 32 bouts in categories between 48 kg and +80 kg.
With no clear domination by any particular state during the preliminary rounds, the most fancied boxers went through the motions in order to make it to the next round with a few walkovers.
The day began with a 4:1 decision in favour of Haryana’s Jayshree over Kajal of Chandigarh in 48 kg.
Kerala’s Nikhitha M Baby beat her Rajasthan rival Chanchal Shekawat (48) with a split-decision verdict while Pumpi Gyadi of Arunachal accounted for Tamil Nadu’s S. Sabitha. Srijan Sharma of Himachal Pradesh defeated Jharkhand’s Nisha Kumari and Maharashtra’s Sakshi Jagdal got the better of Goa’s Shrisha Jampulla in different weight classes.
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