Former Asian championship silver medallist Nanao Singh (SSCB) showed his class in the first round of the light-flyweight category with a fluent 18-2 win over Aditya of West Bengal in the 56th Sahara senior National boxing championship which got underway at Saroornagar Indoor Stadium here on Monday.
Quite expectedly, the left-handed Nano was clearly dominant to start with, unleashing a flurry of powerful punches. A visibly rattled Aditya was seen repeatedly trying to take cover even as the much better-rated boxer picked points to lead 5-1 at the end of first round.
In the second round, Aditya had the ignominy of taking standing count on two occasions even as Nanao increased the lead with 10 more points to lead that round at 15-2.
In the third round, Nano was visibly relaxed in view of the huge lead he got in the first two rounds and still emerged a deserving 18-2 winner.
Devendro aggressive
In another bout, former World cadet gold medallist Devendro Singh of Manipur demonstrated how aggressive attitude very early in a contest could be decisive in the ring with a deadly combination of punches which had Bishwajit of Assam Rifles struggling to move away from the firing line.
Surprisingly, Devendro’s defence seemed to be a bit casual which allowed his opponent to pick two points in the first round.
In the second round, Devendro avoided taking too many risks after piling up a handsome 13-2 lead and all that he did in the final round was just to stay away from the range of his opponent to eventually win the bout with a 17-2 margin.
The results :
Light-flyweight: First round: Umesh Yadav (MP) bt Sandeep Malik (Dli) 6-1; Nanao Singh (SSCB) bt Aditya (WB) 18-2; Devendro Singh (Mani) bt Bishwajit (Assam Rifles) 17-2; S. Venkatraman (Ker) bt K. Chetri (Meg) 13-2; Anil Singh (Mah) bt Lalit Shika (Cht) 14-7; Sunil Shukla (Jha) bt Bikas Shah (Asm) 9-0; Saroj Kumar (HP) bt Sanjeev (J & K) 14-1.
Flyweight: First round: Vikas (Dli) bt Gaurav (Asm) 9-0; Santosh (Goa) bt K. Santosh (AP) 7-1; Vijay (Mah) bt S. P. Thapa (Assam Rifles) 5-5 - on individual scores.
