There would be no nerves on her debut for Nikhat Zareen. Well, maybe some when she lost the first round on the judges’ scorecard 2-3. But as soon as that little blip occurred, she went into the zone and emerged with a unanimous 5-0 win in her opening round against Germany’s Maxi Carina on Sunday.
It took a while for the 28-year-old to get to this stage and the start reflected that. Zareen, masterful at maintaining range, wasn’t dealing well with Carina charging forward. It led to situations where she was open and got dealt with a few crisp right hooks. It was a tough round to score for the judges and three out of five went the way of the European boxer.
But the second round was where Zareen came alive. She had to because boxing scorecards are untrustworthy and the cleaner the punches you land, the tougher it is for judges to give the bout away to the other boxer. The Nizamabad native landed two clear-as-day hooks clean on Carina. That shot continued to come in handy as every exchange between the two would end with Zareen exiting with that shot out of range. Carina tried to force what worked for her in the first but the Indian had figured her range out and was landing at will. The judge took a point from each for landing blows at the back of the head, but once the scorecards were in, each of the judges unanimously agreed that the two-time Zareen had taken that round.
In the last round, she experienced clinching, a ploy others could use against her. Towards the middle of the round, she would attempt to move on the inside of Zareen. The strategy was sound – tired arms equal powered-down punches. But towards the end, Zareen managed to still connect a few of her shots and got a 10-9 on all five cards.
Zareen next faces Yu on Thursday. The current Women’s 50 kg World Champion against the current Women’s 54 kg World Champion promises to be the first possibly three more tough bouts for the Indian. Since Wu has made the step down to the 50kg category, there have not been many challengers to her. She beat Chuthamat Raksat at the 2023 Asian Games – after the Thai boxer had taken Zareen down in the semi-final.
Paddlers progress
In table tennis, Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra came through their round of 64 clashes unscathed. Batra scored a 4-1 win over Anna Hursey while Akula defeated Christina Kallberg 4-0 on an impressive debut showing. It’s the first time India will have two players in the TT women’s singles round of 32 at the Olympics. But in a major upset, veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal went down fighting against Deni Kozul of Slovenia, to bow out of singles contention. After a back-and-forth battle, Sharath was leading by 6 points in the sixth game looking to force a decider, but the Slovenian fought back to take it to tiebreaks where errors by Sharath cost him dearly.
In archery, there was hope, but then there was disappointment. The women’s team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat, and Bhajan Kaur had an outside to reach the podium but came unstuck in the quarterfinals against Netherlands to lose 0-6. It was a case of missed opportunities against a lower-seeded team as Ankita and Deepika struggled to hit 9+ consistently, with the former shooting a 4 at one point.
(With inputs from Vinayakk Mohanarangan)