New Delhi, June 06: After a string of failures on day one, India put up a much improved show on the second day of the 16th Asian Senior Wrestling Championship here today with three of its grapplers making it to the finals. Gurbinder Singh got a walkover in the semi-finals of the 66 kg Greco- roman event against Y S Abdul of Syria to move into the finals without having to sweat it out, while Geetika Jhakar won her third round match against Rasulova Mursawa of Kyrgystan to book her place in the title clash in the 63 kg free style event.
The third finalist was Kiran Sihag, who by virtue of having just another competitor in the 67 kg free style event, moved into the finals that will be played tomorrow. She will take on Norie Saito of Japan. In the other bouts today, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Palwinder Singh Cheema today won both his super heavyweight bouts.
The Asian Games bronze medallist Cheema beat Mongolian Gankhuyag Dorjpalam of Mongolia 5-3 in his first bout this morning and then overpowered Huang Chun Sheng of Taipei to win his second bout in the 120 kg free style event.

He now needs another victory to move into the finals of the event, slated for sunday.

The other three Indian grapplers in the free style event also won their second round bouts. Sushil Kumar (60 kg), who had got a bye in the first round, beat Jung Hung Ho of Korea 7-6 in a closely contested match.

Another medal prospect Sujit Mann (74 kg) beat his Vietnamese rival Pham Than Quyet by pinning him down on the mat. Sujit had also got a bye in the first round this morning.

Jagdish Kali Raman, who had lost his first bout this morning, also made amends by winning his bout against a portly Brahm Dev Yadav of Nepal by fall.

However, results in the second round, barring one, of the greco roman category did not go India's way.

Virender Singh, who had lost his first bout to Park woo of Korea, beat his Uzbek rival D Dishod by 5-1 points in the 120 kg category.

But Ravinder Singh (60 kg), Sanjay Kumar (74 kg) and Satish Kumar (96 kg) lost their bouts to Hudoy Dierasliddin of Uzbekistan, Man Ba Xum of Vietnam and Yusuke Morikaku of Japan, respectively.

Bureau Report