Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam): Former World Champion Sarita Devi (64kg) along with two other women pugilists entered the semi-finals, ensuring themselves of a medal, as India continued it’s dominating run for another day of the Asian Boxing Championship. As many as Seven boxers out of ten, including London Olympics bronze medalists Mary Kom have entered the final rounds of the tournament.
Sonia Lather (57kg) and Lovelina Borgohain (69kg) were among the other boxers who won their respective quarter-final bouts on Sunday. While Sonia defeated Nazym Ichshanova to enter the final four, Borgohain put aside Erdenetuya Enkhbaatar of Mongolia to assure herself of a bronze.
However it was Sarita who dominated the proceedings. The four times Asian Championships gold medalists who made a return to the amateur fold after a brief stint in the professional circuit completely punched aside Maftunakhon Melieva of Uzbekistan to register a comfortable 5-0 win.
Counting on her experience she landed some lusty blows on the Uzbek boxer. Some good reflexes and timely punches gave her an early lead. But she got into full groove in the second round, taking down Melieva with flurry of punches. The Uzbekistan boxer even suffered a standing eight count before standing up dazed, to continue.
Nevertheless Melieva made a comeback in the final round, but it was too late as Sarita dodged out the attacks with some fine ring-movement to Set up a semi-final clash with Dan Dou of China on Tuesday.
World Championships silver medalist Sonia Lather, got the better of Nazym Ichshanova of Kazakhstan in a close battle, assuring herself of a second medal in the Championships.
Sonia took the early lead putting Ichshanova on the back-foot, but the boxer fought back before the Indian won the final round to make it 3-2 and progress to the next round. She will take on Yodgoroy Mirzaeba of Uzbekistan.
Lovelina Borgohain of Assam also progressed to the next round after putting aside Erdenetuya Enkhbaatar of Mongolia in the quarters and will face Valentina Khalzova in the semis on Tuesday.
Earlier, Olympics beonze medallist M C Mary Kom (48kg), Priyanka Choudhary (60kg) and Shiksha (54kg) had also advanced to the semifinals.