Indian wrestlers are making their presence felt at the world stage yet again as three youngsters -- Akash Antil, Shravan Tomar and Veer Dev Gulia have entered quarter-finals in their respective categories on day one of the U-23 World  Championships in Budapest Hungary on Monday. After registering a not-too-convincing victory in the qualification rounds, Gulia showed his real power and strength in the last 16 bouts against the Ligan Chai of China. Gulia performing brilliantly outwitted the Chinese by 7-2 to book a place in the last 8 of the World Championships.

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How the Indian wrestlers fared?

Earlier in the opening round, Gulia was up against the host country wrestler Lukacs Botond. Right from the word-go Gulia created pressure on the Hungarian with his tight defense. In a hard-fought bout Gulia managed to score 3-1 victory against the local hope. Earlier, Sharvan dished out absolutely brilliant performance in the 65kg weight category. Indian who was up against very tough Rifat Saibotalov of Kazakhstan. Sharvan gave a display of very attacking wrestling to defeat the Kazakh 8-6 and book his place in the quarters. Sharvan was down 4-6 at one point in time but came back strongly to defeat the Kazakh. In the quarters, Shravan will be up against the Ilman Mukhtarov of 
France.India’s winning start on the opening day was given by Akash Antil in the 97kg weight category. In the last 16 bouts, Indian easily dismantled Li Xu from China 10-0. Antil was at his best in attack and did not give any chance to Chinese to come back in the match. Antil will play his quarterfinal bout against Danylo Stasiuk   of Ukraine.

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Naveen fails to impress

In the 70 kg freestyle opening round, India’s U23 National champion Naveen proved to be no match for the Russian number 1 Valiev Chermen. Chermen was so dominating in his performance against the Indian that the bout did not even last 1.30 secs. With-in no time the champion from Russia overpowered Naveen to win the bout with-in 90 seconds by 11-0.In the 57kg freestyle category, Naveen was easily overwhelmed bt Duman Ahmet from Turkey. Naveen was no match for the Turkish wrestler and lost out 11-0 with-in no time to the national champion from Turkey.

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