Wrestler Abhimanyu upsets higher-ranked Ukrainian in opening round of World Championships

All four Indian free-style wrestlers on show on the day one of the UWW World Championships won their opening-round bouts with 70kg grappler Abhimanyu upsetting world number 7 Ukraine’s Ihor Nykyforuk here on Saturday.

Abhimanyu, the bronze-medal winner at the U23 World Championships in June and ranked 26th in the world, defeated the Ukrainian 19-9, effecting a victory by fall (VFA).

The referee stopped the contest 2.41 minutes into the second three-minute session, after Abhimanyu had also dominated the first three-minute session, taking a 5-0 lead.

The Indian will take on Nicolai Grahmez of Moldova in the in the pre-quarterfinal.

Akash Dahiya too began on a winning note defeating his Moldovan opponent Leomid Colesnic, scoring an overwhelming 10-5 verdict from the referees.

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The world ranked No.21 grappler will take on Uzbekistan’s Jahongirmirza Turobov, who is seeded sixth here and a gold medallist a the 2021 Asian Championships.

In other opening-round bouts, 86kg grappler Sandeep Mann got the better of Dejan Mitrov of North Macedonia with a win by technical superiority (10-0), and will take on Lin Zushen of China in the second qualification round.

India’s 125kg grappler Sumit too had an easy outing against Japanese Taiki Yamamoto, ranked 30th in the world to the Indian’s 29th, winning the contest 3-1, to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with Poland’s Robert Baran. The seventh seed Baran is a European Championships silver medallist besides being a quarterfinalist at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.