Mary Kom in final; Vikas, Satish in semis of Strandja Memorial

M C Mary Kom (48kg) turned on the style as she advanced to the finals, while Vikas Krishan and two other male boxers entered the semifinals on a reasonably good day for India at the 69th Strandja Memorial Tournament here today.
Five-time world champion and Olympic bronze-medallist Mary Kom, targetting her third successive international gold medal, quite literally toyed with China's Ye Jiali to make the summit clash.
In the men's draw, former Asian Games gold-medallist Vikas Krishan (75kg), Asian Games bronze medallist Satish Kumar (+91kg) and the unheralded Gaurav Solanki (52kg) advanced to the semi-finals to assure themselves of medals.

While Gaurav pummelled Kyrgyzstans Azat Usenaliev, Vikas edged past Kazakhstans Tursynbay Kulakhmet in a split verdict to make the last-four stage.
It was a significant victory for Vikas, who is returning to action after recovering from a hand injury, which forced him out of the national championships as well as the India Open last month.
In the evening session, Satish hardly broke a sweat against Iran's Iman Ramezanpoudelavar in his quarterfinal victory.

Their victories took the total number of male boxers in the semi-finals to five.
Earlier, India Open gold-medallist Amit Panghal (49kg) also made the semi-final stage along with last editions silver-medallist Mohammed Hussamuddin (56kg).

Bowing out today in the quarterfinal stage was Manish Panwar (81kg), losing to Russia's Ilyas Mutaev in a unanimous verdict.
India are now assured of 10 medals in the tournament, five of them courtesy women boxers -- Mary Kom, L Sarita Devi (60kg), Seema Punia (+81kg), Saweety Boora (75kg), Mena Kumari Devi (54kg) and Bhagyabati Kachari (81kg).
Seema and Bhagyabati got byes into the medal rounds.