World Wrestling Championships 2022: Ravi Kumar Dahiya makes early exit after one-sided loss; Naveen enters bronze match-Sports News , Firstpost

Ravi Kumar Dahiya (lying on the mat) taken down by Uzbekistan’s Gulomjon Abullaev during World Wrestling Championships 2022 in Belgrade on Friday. Screengrab/UWW

India’s star wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya made an early exit from the World Wrestling Championships 2022 in Belgrade on Friday as the 24-year-old Olympic silver medallist lost to Uzbekistan’s Gulomjon Abdullaev.

The 57kg category match, a pre-quarterfinal encounter, was expected to be tricky as World No. 30 Abdullaev has defeated the Indian multiple times in the past. However, the World No. 2 Indian lost by technical superiority (10-0) to the Uzbek in what appeared to be a meek surrender. The defeat came right after Ravi had a strong to his campaign as he comfortably defeated Romania’s Razwan Kovacs by technical superiority.

For Abdullaev, the win over Ravi was a sort of revenge as the Indian defeated the 23-year-old Uzbek in the previous encounter in UWW Ranking Series event (Yasar Dogu 2022) in Istanbul in February.

Abdullaev lost his quarter-final bout to Albania’s World No. 26 Zelimkhan Abakarov, who won the match by technical superiority (13-2) to book his semifinal spot.

Naveen Malik reaches repechage final

Naveen Malik, meanwhile, qualified for the bronze medal match as he defeated World No. 4 Syrbaz Talgat (Uzbekistan) in 70kg opening round of repechage 11-3. The win took him directly to the bronze medal match as his next-round opponent Ilyas Bekbulatov (Uzbekistan) couldn’t compete expectedly due to an injury.

The Commonwealth Games Champion will face World Ernazar Akmatalieve (Kyrgyzstan) in the bronze medal match later on Friday evening.

Meanwhile, two other Indians tasted defeat on the day as Sagar Jaglan (74kg) and Vicky Hooda (92kg) went out of the gold medal run. Hooda lost in the qualification round to Poland’s Radoslaw Marcinkiewicz 3-4 at the death despite taking a 3-0 lead earlier.

Sagar, on the other hand, showed good form as he defeated Israel’s Mitchell Finesilver (15-4) and Diego Sandoval (13-2) o reach the quarters. However, he conceded the next bout by fall within 40 seconds of to USA’s defending champion Kyle Dake.

The 18-year-old Indian would be now waiting for Dake to enter finals to ensure his repechage qualification.

Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia will be in action on Saturday.

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