Kalaivani, Nikhat enter finals at Women's National Boxing Championship

S. Kalaivani of Tamil Nadu and Nikhat Zareen of Telangana entered the finals in their respective weight categories at the Women's National Boxing Championship here Saturday. Railways' Sonia Lather, too, entered the final beating Sandhyarani Devi of AIP 4-1 while Shashi Chopra of Haryana downed Manipur's KH Shamim Banu 5-0 to clash in the 57kg class final tomorrow. This clash should be really interesting because one is a world champion medallist and the other a world youth championships medal winner.

Earlier, Haryana's Pinki Jangra had little difficult in putting it across her Railways rival, Meenakshi, winning the semifinal bout 5-0 and looks the favourite for the title against Nikhat Zareen. With 20 bouts scheduled for the day, the best bout in light fly class with Kalavani taking on Haryana's Sanju. The Haryana girl, with an open guard, invited the opponent to charge at her. And Kalavani did precisely that and landed quite few combination blows, hitting the target areas.

For Nikhat, it became too easy as the Telangana boxer was far superior to her AIP opponent as she sent down a combination punches. Though she slowed down a bit in the second and third rounds, she had the measure of Vanlai Dauti which helped the former move into the final. For the experienced boxers, Pinki Rani easily defeated Railways' Meenakshi on points, Simranjit Kaur defeated Basanti Chanu of AIP, RSC R3 while Assam's Lovlina defeated Meemthoi Devi of All India Police 5-0 on points as it was rather business as usual for the boxers.

(With inputs from agencies.)