Maverick boxer says injury suffered during bout affected vision leading to 14-21 defeat in Round Two; Devendro, Jai Bhagwan progress
Maverick boxer says injury suffered during bout affected vision leading to 14-21 defeat in Round Two; Devendro, Jai Bhagwan progressThere was disappointment in store for India when, Akhil Kumar (56kg) and Manpreet Singh (91kg) crashed out of the World Boxing Championships here yesterday. Akhil Kumar crashed out following his second-round loss to fourth seed Nevin John of Ireland in the last Indian bout of the day. Akhil, a former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist, lost 14-21.
The Haryana-boxer trailed 5-7 in the opening round and the gap widened to 9-14 at the end of the second round. In the end, the 22-year-old Nevin proved too good for the 30-year-old Indian as he sealed the issue in his favour to progress to the next stage.
Akhil ended up with a cut below his right eye at the start of Round Two due to one of John's nasty straight hits and that affected his vision. "I was trailing by just two points and I thought I could make up for it but the cut I received below my eye led to a lot of bleeding and also affected my vision. From then on, I became defensive and ended up losing," he said.
u00a0In the heavyweight 91kg category Asian Games silver-medallist Manpreet Singh crashed out of the event losing 17-9 to Dzhakon Qurbanov.
There was good news however with Devendro Singh (49 kg) and Jai Bhagwan (60 kg) registered convincing wins to advance to the pre-quarters.