Four Indians in semis of Mongolian boxing tourney

India were assured of four medals at the Ulaanbaatar Cup in Mongolia after four boxers from the country, including world and Asian silver-winner Sonia Lather (57kg), advanced to the semifinals today.

Joining her in the last-four stage were Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), Himanshu Sharma (49kg) and Ashish (64kg).

All the four boxers are guaranteed of at least a bronze medal each. However, world silver-medallist Sarjubala Devi (51kg) bowed out in the quarterfinal stage after losing a close bout to Mongolian Myagmardulam Nandinsetseg 1-4.

Sonia produced an assured performance to defeat local favourite Myagmar Gundegmaa to make the last-four stage.

Lovlina, a gold-medallist at the inaugural India Open earlier this year, was equally dominating in her 5-0 win over Thailand's Suchada Panich.

It was a battle of straight punches between Sonia and Gundegmaa and the Indian was better by a few notches in her clean and impactful hits.

Lovlina's rival put up a stronger resistance but lacked in accuracy.

In the evening session which featured men's quarterfinal bouts, Himanshu defeated Chinese Taipei's Po Wei Tu in a unanimous verdict. Also advancing with a 5-0 win was Ashish, who put it past Korea's Kim Song Yun in a clinical performance.

Earlier, world and asian medallist Shiva Thapa (60kg), former Commonwealth Games silver-winner Mandeep Jangra (69kg), Salman Sheikh (52kg) and Etash Khan (56kg) had booked their quarterfinal berths.

They will be seen in action tomorrow.