Int'l medallists continue good form in Boxing Nationals

Former World Championships silver-medallist Sarjubala Devi staved off a spirited challenge from Mizoram's Rebecca Lal to enter the quarterfinals of the National Women's Boxing Championships here today.
Sarjubala, competing for Manipur in the light flyweight (51kg) category, edged past Rebecca via a split decision of 2-1 after an engrossing four-rounder that pushed the gold medal favourite quite hard.
A tempo boxer, who prefers to go all out from the very first round, Sarjubala was matched punch-for-punch by Rebecca but her failure to sustain the intensity gave Sarjubala the victory.
The former junior world championship silver-medallist will next be up against Delhi's Pooja Tokas, who outpunched Tamil Nadu's K Nivedita 3-0.

Another former World Championships silver-medallist Saweety Boora (81kg), who is representing Haryana, had no trouble sailing past Punjab's Ninderjeet Kaur 3-0. Saweety, also an Asian Championships silver-medallist, was in fine rhythm and displayed some excellent footwork. Despite being shorter in height, Saweety managed to dominate her rival with some precisely-connected uppercuts to the body.
It was smooth sailing for former junior world champion Nikhat Zareen (51kg) too. She hardly broke a sweat in her contest against Rajasthan's Jyoti and won comprehensively.

The Telangana girl put up a dominating performance to prevail 3-0 in the contest and set up a clash with Assam's Manju Basumatry.

Basumatry got the better of All India Police's Anjali Mehta.
Also making the last-eight stage was former Asian silver-medallist Pavitra (64kg). She scored a Technical Knockout in the third round of her pre-quarterfinal bout against local favourite Nivedita.
Pavitra will square off against Punjab's Simranjeet Kaur in the quarterfinals tomorrow.
Manipur's Sandhya Rani, who had upstaged two-time World Championships bronze-medallist Chhoto Laura in the opening round yesterday, continued her fine form to enter the quarters.
She defeated Rajasthan's Neha Bhambu via a Technical Knockout in the third round of her pre-quarterfinal contest.
In the later session, Asian Championships silver-medallist Ashish (64kg) also advanced to the round of 16.

The Indian defeated Puerto Rico's Antonio Omar Garcia 5-0 in a thoroughly dominating performance to move ahead in the event.