Two-time world champion boxer Nikhat Zareen stamped her authority in women’s 50kg by registering a dominant 5-0 win over Vietnam’s Thi Tam Nguyen while Preeti Pawar (54kg) moved to the quarter-finals of the Asian Games here on Sunday.

In a rematch of March’s World Championship final, Zareen once again defeated two-time Asian Champion Nguyen by unanimous decision to move to the pre-quarters.

One of only four boxers to not get a first-round bye in the 50kg event despite being the reigning world champion, Zareen controlled the proceedings from the word go.

In the opening two rounds, Zareen landed accurate punches. Such was her power that the referee was forced to give Nguyen the eight count twice in 30 seconds in the opening round.

Nguyen tried to attack in the second round but Zareen retaliated with strong combination punches, forcing a third eight-count upon the Vietnamese boxer.

With her work done, Zareen conserved energy in the final three minutes, defending beautifully with the help of her nimble footwork.

Putting up a dominating show, talented Indian boxer Preeti notched up a Referee Stops Contest (RSC) win over Jordan’s Silina Alhasanat.

Spikers falter

Japan pushed Indian men’s volleyball team out of the medal race with a fluent 25-16, 25-18, 25-17 win in a cross-group match here on Sunday.

Japan will now face China in the semi-finals whereas India will play against either Pakistan or Qatar in fifth-sixth place classification match on Tuesday.

The Indian team had topped Group C after winning against Cambodia and
South Korea.

Mixed day in chess

Indian Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, the third-highest-ranked player in the field, suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Kazakhstan’s IM Kazybek Nogerbek in the second round of the men’s individual event. In the women’s event, India’s top players — Koneru Humpy and D. Harika — started well, securing wins in the first two rounds.

Srihari sixth

The impressive run of star swimmer Srihari Nataraj and Indian women’s team ended with sixth and seventh-place finishes in the finals of men’s 100m backstroke and 4x100m freestyle relay, respectively, on Sunday. Srihari came up a timing of 54.48 seconds in the final. He was 2.25 behind gold medallist Xu Jiayu (52.23) of China.

The women’s team comprising Olympian Maana Patel, Dhinidhi Desinghu, Janvi Choudhary and Shivangi Sarma clocked 3:54:66 in the final to take the seventh place.

Sumit Nagal, in file picture above, moved into the prequarter finals on Sunday. PTI

Nagal in pre-quarters

In tennis, Sumit Nagal moved to the men’s singles pre-quarter finals as he thrashed Macau’s Ho Tin Marco Leung, here on Sunday.

The fifth seed Nagal, who had got a first round bye, needed just 45 minutes to dispatch his opponent 6-0, 6-0. The second-seeded Indian pair of Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan outplayed Nepal’s Abhishek Bastola and Pradip Khadka 6-2, 6-3 in their men’s doubles opening round match.

Written with inputs from PTI