Vikas Krishan, Shiva Thapa in pre-quarters of Boxing World Championships

Vikas Krishan and Shiva Thapa

Doha: Asian silver-medallist Vikas Krishan (75kg) and Shiva Thapa (56kg) notched up comprehensive victories to enter the pre-quarters of the World Championships yesterday.


Vikas Krishan and Shiva Thapa

Shiva, a former Asian champion, started the proceedings on a perfect note for the country as he outpunched Algeria's Khalil Litim 3-0. The 23-year-old will next face Morocco's Mohamed Hamout, who got a first-round bye.

Easy for Vikas
Later, Vikas also sailed past Hungary's Zoltan Harcsa 3-0 to make the Last 16 stage. Vikas has a very tough bout next up as he will be up against fourth seed Tomasz Jablonski, a European Championships silver-medallist.

Vikas had won a bronze medal at the 2011 edition of the event - only the second Indian to do so after Vijender Singh. The Haryana-lad dominated his bout against an immensely jittery rival and won by a unanimous decision.

"Both Shiva and Vikas dominated their bouts in the first two rounds and took it easy in the third for obvious reasons. They have tough opponents in the next round but fingers crossed for a good result," national coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu said.

Curtains for Manoj
However, it was curtains for Manoj Kumar (64kg) in the very first round as he was stunned 1-2 to Moroccan Abdelhak Aatakni.

The ex-Commonwealth Games gold-medallist was surprisingly rusty in the opening round and the loss of momentum cost him dearly. His movement sluggish in the first two rounds, Manoj gathered himself in the final three minutes but the comeback was a tad too late as Aatakni clinched the bout.

L Devendro Singh was also shown the door by Britain's Harvey Horn in men's light fly 46-49kg category. Horn won 2-1 on points.