Pro Wrestling League 2018: Haryana Hammers sail past Delhi Sultans for season's second consecutive win

New Delhi: Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sun Yanan of China steered last year’s finalists Haryana Hammers to a comfortable 5-2 victory over Delhi Sultans in the Pro Wrestling League 3 on Friday. Yanan, taking on Maroi Mezien of Tunisia, was at her dominating best as she sealed the contest 11-2 even before the last bout was fought. [caption id=“attachment_4300833” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Haryana Hammers player in action. Image courtesy: PWL[/caption] This is Haryana’s second consecutive win of the season. Sumit picked a hard-fought 4-2 win in the last bout of the day over his compatriot Hitender to make it 5-2 in the favour of the Hammers. With the scores levelled 2-2, Khetik Tsavalov of Russia sent Haryana ahead by eking out a convincing 10-0 victory over young Indian wrestler Vinod Omprakash in the 74-kg competition. Vinod, who replaced an injured Sushil Kumar in the line-up, could not mount a serious challenge to his much fancied rival and went down meekly. Earlier in the day, Delhi blocked Rio Olympics gold medallist Vladimir Khinchegashvili after winning the toss and Haryana used their card to keep Egypt’s Samar Amer Ibrahim. World champion Haji Aliev of Azerbaijan put Delhi on the front-foot straightaway, beating India’s Harphool 11-4 in the 65-kg competition. Harphool got off a brilliant start, opening up a healthy 4-2 lead straight-away. But the Rio Olympics bronze winner Haji bounced back to finish the opening period 6-2. Haji maintained the momentum in the second period as well and scored five points to win the contest 11-4. Haryana bounced back in the second encounter as Sarita beat Monia in the 62-kg competition. Delhi’s icon player Alborov Aslan then played with elan to beat India’s Deepak Punia 15-0 by technical superiority in the 92-kg event to help his team retain the lead. The World Championship bronze medalist came into the bout as a strong favourite and lived up to the mantle, dominating his opponent completely to clinch the contest. Helen Maroulis of USA made it 2-2 for the Hammers after she registered a 6-6 victory by pinfall against 2017 Commonwealth Wrestling Championship’s silver medalist Sangeeta Phoghat. The World and Olympic champion Helen was trailing 2-6 at one stage but she overpowered her opponent, rolled her over twice and then pinned her to the mat to bring Haryana back into the seven-bout tie.