Disastrous start by Indian grapplers, three lose their bouts

Doha, Dec 9 (UNI) Indian grapplers started their campaign on a disastrous note with three of them losing their bouts in the first session of the wrestling competition at the Asian Games here today.

In the Greco-Roman 60 kg category, Ravinder Singh won his first bout easily before losing in the quarterfinals.

The 25-year-old Indian chalked out a fluent 3-0 win over Iraq's Jasim Ahmed in the preliminary round. He was technically far superior to his Iraqi rival and in the first period logged three points and repeated the same form in the second to win the bout which lasted for 3:40 minutes.

However, Ravinder met his match in the quarterfinal in China's Jiang Sheng and lost the bout 1-3.

The Chinese dominated the bout from the very start and never allowed the Indian find his grip.

Ravinder tried every trick but could not get hold of Sheng.

The Chinese was content with collecting points with some good display of body tackling. The Indian, on the other hand, had to satisfy with one technical point.

Meanwhile, in the 74 kg Greco-Roman event, Sanjay lost 1-3 to Taichi Suga of Japan.

The Japanese grappler attacked from the start but surprisingly the Indian was very defensive. Sanjay hardly attacked and, while defending, he conceded some crucial points.

Suga notched up 10 technical points and three classification points as against the Indian who had one technical and one classification points.

In the 96 kg Greco-Roman, another Indian Anil Kumar Singh bite the dust as he lost to Iran's Mosoud Hashem Zadeh.

It was a battle between unequals as the Iranian almost knocked out the Indian. Anil was having no clue as how to tackle his far superior rival. He became defensive but that approach did no help him as Zadeh managed eight technical and three classification points which were enough for him to move into the quarter finals. Anil failed to earn any point.

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