Lovlina gets walkover as Haryana, Kerala pugilists impress

Lovlina Borgohain, who won a bronze at the World Championships in November, entered the quarterfinals owing to a walkover as pugilists from Haryana and Kerala impressed in the Women's National Boxing Championships here Thursday.

Though the most interesting aspect of the Nationals was four of Kerala boxers Divya Ganesh (69 kg), Indira K A (75kg), Anaswara P M (81+kg) and Fousiya A T (81kg) entered the quarterfinals along with four boxers from Haryana while three pugilists from Railways, two each from Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh and All India Police and one from Rajasthan, made it a worthwhile event for themselves.

Fousiya got a walkover from AIP's Neha Jhadav, Divya beat Tamil Nadu's S Preethi 5:0, Indira achieved an RSC-1 decision against Gujrat's Riya Upadhyay and Anaswara won on points (5:0) against Maharashtra's Shayaan Pathan to move up for Kerala.

As Haryana's quarterfinal entrants 2017 World Youth Championship bronze medallist Anupama was the lone boxer who benefited from a walkover from Ravi Chandrika Balga of Andhra Pradesh even as Nisha, Nupur and Pooja Rani showed their ring superiority to advance to the quarterfinals.

Lovlina got a walkover in the welter class (69 kg) pre-quarterfinals from Andhra Pradesh's Marathamma Saitivada. The 21-year-old Assamese will be entering the ring for the first time when she takes on Mithrem Jagirdar of Gujarat, who stopped Delhi's Anjali with an RSC-1 verdict in the quarters.

But the best bouts of the day were witnessed in the middleweight class when Railways' Neetu beat AIP's Kalawanti with a split verdict (3:2) and also Avneet Kaur of Chandigarh, who tackled tough Delhi pugilist, Shalakha Sansanwal, also by the same margin.