13 Indian boxers enter finals of Serbian youth tourney

Indian boxers continued to be on a roll at the 36th Golden Glove of Vojvodina youth tournament with 13 of them, including six women, advancing to the final in Subotica, Serbia.

The women who made the final included reigning youth world champion Jyoti Gulia (51kg), who out-punched Russian Liubov Makeeva 5-0 in her semi-final bout last night.

Among the men, Akash Kumar (56kg), Ankit (60kg), Akash (64kg), Vijaydeep (69kg), and Nitin Kumar (75kg) entered the final.             

Akash Kumar defeated Scotland's John Casey 5-0 and Ankit also had little trouble going past Hungary's Alex Jakab.

In the 64kg category, the other Akash blanked Poland's Daniel Piotrowski 5-0. Vijaydeep too pulled off a unanimous verdict in his clash against local favourite Milan Vrankovic.

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In the middleweight division, Nitin sent packing another crowd favourite in Filip Dzinic with a 5-0 win. S Barun Singh (49kg) and Aman (+91kg) had made their way to the finals by clinching their respective bouts prior to Saturday.

Among the women, Nitu (48kg) took less than two rounds to force Russian Kseniia Beschastnova out of the competition.

Divya Pawar (54kg) clinched a similar result against another Russian, Mariia Med, while Manisha (64kg) faced a slight challenge Diana Rys, also from Russia, before prevailing 4-1.

Lalita (69kg) defeated Poland's Patrycja Borys 4-1. Neha Yadav (+81kg) got a direct entry into the final due to the small size of the draw in her weight category.

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Settling for bronze medals were Saskhi (51kg), Sakshi Gaidhani (81kg) and Bhavesh Kittamani (52kg) after losing their respective semi-finals bouts.