Indian wrestler Abhimanyu scores upset win at world championships

All four Indian free-style wrestlers on show on day one of the UWW World Championships won their opening-round bouts, with 70kg grappler Abhimanyu upsetting world no. 7 Ihor Nykyforuk of Ukraine in Belgrade, Serbia, on Saturday.

Abhimanyu, bronze-medal winner at the U-23 World Championships in June and ranked 26th in the world, defeated the Ukrainian 19-9, effecting a victory by fall (VFA).

The referee stopped the contest 2.41 minutes into the second three-minute session, after Abhimanyu had also dominated the first three-minute session, taking a 5-0 lead. The Indian will take on Nicolai Grahmez of Moldova in the pre-quarterfinal.

Akash Dahiya, too, began on a winning note, defeating his Moldovan opponent Leomid Colesnic with an overwhelming 10-5 verdict from the referees.

The world no. 21 grappler will now take on Uzbekistan's Jahongirmirza Turobov, who is seeded sixth here and a gold medallist at the 2021 Asian Championships.

In other opening-round bouts, 86 kg grappler Sandeep Mann got the better of Dejan Mitrov of North Macedonia with a win by technical superiority (10-0), and will take on Lin Zushen of China in the second qualification round.

India's 125 kg grappler Sumit too had an easy outing against Japanese Taiki Yamamoto, ranked 30th in the world to the Indian's 29th, winning the contest 3-1 to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with Poland's Robert Baran. The seventh seed Baran is a European Championships silver medallist besides being a quarterfinalist at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.