Boxing: India assured of 5 medals at China Cup

New Delhi: South Asian Games gold medalist Chhote Lal Yadav (57kg) and former Commonwealth champion Sunil Kumar (51kg) notched up contrasting wins to enter the semifinals and assure India of two more medals in the AIBA 3 Star China Cup boxing tournament in Guiyang City. While Yadav pummelled his Sri Lankan rival Saman Silva 16-0, Sunil rallied to beat Kazakh Ismail Akhunov 8-5 to enter the last-four stage of the ranking points event. However, Jai Singh Patil (69kg) lost 2-8 to Kazakhstan`s Omerzakov Manat. Yadav has a tough bout at hand as he would be taking on Russian Polyansky Dimitry, while Sunil would be up against local favourite Chang Yong tomorrow.With this, India are assured of at least five bronze medals in the tournament as Olympian Diwakar Prasad (57kg) and national champions Kuldeep Singh (75kg) and Jasveer Singh (81kg) have already made the semifinal stage. Yadav, who was a quarter-finalist at last year`s Asian Championships in China, was aggressive from the very start and took a 6-0 lead in the first round itself. The Indian didn`t allow his rival to land a single scoring punch and after leading 10-0 at the end of the second round, the diminutive counter-puncher wrapped it up by adding six more points.Sunil, on the other hand, was trailing 1-3 at the end of the first round before making a comeback. The Haryana boxer turned it around to make it 7-4 in the second round before warding off Akhunov`s tough challenge in the final three minutes. The China Cup features 102 boxers from 19 countries. PTI