NEW DELHI: Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain made a winning start to her campaign as she and Sakshi Chaudhary moved to the quarter-finals of the Women’s World Championships with dominant victories here on Monday.
Both Sakshi (54kg) and Lovlina (75kg) notched identical 5-0 unanimous decision wins respectively.
While Lovlina out-punched Mexico’s Vanessa Ortiz, Sakshi got the better of Zhazira Urakbayeva of Kazakhstan to progress to the last eight stage.
But the most electrifying Indian performance of the day was displayed by Preeti (54kg). The youngster though eventually lost her bout to last year’s 52kg silver medallist Thailand’s Jitpong Jutamas by a 4-3 verdict, the bout was so close that a review had to be taken.
Competing in her new 75kg category, Lovlina, who received a first round bye, won her opening encounter to walk one step closer to a medal. The two-time World Championship bronze medallist looked a little defensive against her stocky opponent.
The Indian, who was considerably taller than her Mexican opponent, was forced to play from a distance as Ortiz capitalised on every opportunity to move forward and attack. The result was that Lovlina wasn’t able to connect a lot of the punches as she seemed nervous moving ahead. “It was my first bout, the boxer was shorter than me. I was not able to follow by strategy to the T.”