World Wrestling Championships 2022: Ravi Kumar Dahiya disappoints; Naveen Malik loses bronze medal match

India’s star wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya made an early exit from the World Wrestling Championships 2022 in Belgrade on Friday as the 24-year-old Olympic silver medallist suffered a lopsided loss of 10-0 against Uzbekistan’s Gulomjon Abdullaev in the 57kg category. Meanwhile in the 70kg category, Naveen Malik lost in the bronze medal match to World No. 1 Ernazar Akmataliev (Kyrgyzstan) 1-4 on Sunday.

The 57kg category match, a pre-quarterfinal encounter, was expected to be tricky as World No. 30 Abdullaev has defeated Dahiya multiple times in the past. However, the World No. 2 Indian lost by technical superiority (10-0) to the Uzbek in what appeared to be a meek surrender. The defeat came right after Ravi had a strong to his campaign as he comfortably defeated Romania’s Razwan Kovacs by technical superiority.

For Abdullaev, the win over Ravi was a sort of revenge as the Indian defeated the 23-year-old Uzbek in the previous encounter in the UWW Ranking Series event (Yasar Dogu 2022) in Istanbul in February.

Abdullaev lost his quarter-final bout to Albania’s World No. 26 Zelimkhan Abakarov, who won the match by technical superiority (13-2) to book his semifinal spot.

Naveen couldn’t build on CWG success

Naveen Malik, who won the Commonwealth Games gold medal last month, qualified for the bronze medal match after he made a qualification round exit in the main draw on Thursday. On Friday, he came back strong by defeating World No. 4 Syrbaz Talgat (Uzbekistan) in the 70kg opening round of repechage 11-3.

The win took him directly to the bronze medal match as his next-round opponent Ilyas Bekbulatov (Uzbekistan) couldn’t compete expectedly due to an injury.

In the main draw, Malik lost to Taishi Narikuni of Japan 1-6 in the opening round.

Sagar Jaglan qualifies for repechage round

Meanwhile, two other Indians tasted defeat on the day as Sagar Jaglan (74kg) and Vicky Hooda (92kg) went out of the gold medal run. Hooda lost in the qualification round to Poland’s Radoslaw Marcinkiewicz 3-4 at the death despite taking a 3-0 lead earlier.

Sagar, on the other hand, showed good form as he defeated Israel’s Mitchell Finesilver (15-4) and Diego Sandoval (13-2) o reach the quarters. However, he conceded the next bout by fall within 40 seconds of to USA’s defending champion Kyle Dake.

Dyke went on to reach the gold medal match while ensuring Jaglan’s entry into the repechage round. The Indian teenager will be competing on Saturday while Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia will be in action.

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