Mumbai Garuda becomes first team to enter PWL semis

New Delhi: Captain Adeline Gray and Giorgi Sakandelidze barely broke a sweat in winning their respective bouts while Amit Dhankar stunned world championship silver medallist as Mumbai Garuda became the first team to qualify for the Pro Wrestling League semifinals with a comprehensive 5-2 win over Dilli Veer, here yesterday.

With this win, Mumbai remained unbeaten in this event, having won four out of four ties. Dilli Veer, on the other hand, are out of the reckoning of semifinals, failing to register a single win in their four outings. After three bouts today, Dilli Veer were leading 2-1 before Mumbai scored three consecutive wins by either
technical superiority or Fall verdict through Odunayo Adekuoroye, Giorgi and Adeline.

With Mumbai 1-2 down, Odunayo, World Championship bronze medallist, thrashed Dilli Veer¿s Liliya Horishna 10-0 by technical superiority in Women¿s 53kg to level the scores 2-2. Odunayo of Nigeria went into the break comfortably placed 6-0 and then continued to put up an aggressive show to bag four more points, winning the bout in 4:03 minutes.

Giorgi Sakandelidze then helped Mumbai Garuda take the a 3-2 lead with a 10-0 win by technical superiority in just 47 seconds over Dilli Veer's Krishan Kumar in Men¿s 125kg. The match was over before people could even warm up to the wrestlers presence of the mat. It was the shortest bout of the tournament.

Mumbai captain and icon player Adeline Gray then gave her team the victory as expected as she won comfortably 10-0 by Fall in just two minutes and 18 seconds against Nikki in Women's 69kg bout. With momentum on Mumbai's side, Amit Dhankar caused an upset win over World Championship silver medallist Navruzov Ikhtiyor 9-7 to put the icing on the cake.

Earlier, Mumbai Garuda had it easy in the first bout with Odikadze Elizbar winning 5-0 against Dilli Veer's Gurpal Singh in Men's 97kg category. Leading from the word go, Elizbar, who finished fifth at the World Championship, had an advantage of two points after the opening round and then he earned three more in the next to
win the fight on point difference.

The Phogat sisters ¿ Vinesh and Ritu - representing Delhi and Mumbai teams respectively, clashed with each other, and more experienced Vinesh emerged victorious 8-0 in 48kg bout. Despite being down with fever, Delhi team captain Vinesh could earn two points to lead 2-0 after round one. She then earned four points in the second round by overpowering her sister Ritu from standing position before bagging two more to end the bout on a high.

Vinesh also showed a very good defence during the fight. With scores tied at 1-1, it was up to Mumbai's Pardeep and Dinesh Kumar of Dilli Veer to give their team an upper hand. It was 2-0 in favour of Pardeep after the first round but Dinesh succeeded in taking four straight points and then another one to come back strongly in round two. Although Pardeep pulled back a point in the dying moments of the tie, Dinesh ultimately bagged it 5-3 in Men's 74kg to give Delhi team a 2-1 lead.