Asian Games: Wrestler Deepak Punia beats Uzbekistan’s Javrail Shapiev, storms into final

Indian wrestler Deepak Punia beat Uzbekistan's Javrail Shapiev 4-3 in the men's freestyle 86kg semifinal at the Asian Games

Hangzhou: Indian wrestler Deepak Punia beat Uzbekistan’s Javrail Shapiev 4-3 in the men’s freestyle 86kg semifinal at the Asian Games 2023 on Saturday.

With this win Deepak confirmed a medal by sealing his passage to the final.

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The Tokyo 2020 Olympian, Deepak will face Rio 2016 Olympics champion Hassan Yazdani of Iran.

The Iranian grappler is also a three-time world champion — 2017, 2019 and 2021 — and the defending Asian Games champion in this category, as per Olympics.com.

Deepak’s gold medal bout with Hassan Yazdani will start after 2.30 pm IST on Saturday. Earlier, Deepak prevailed 7-3 against Japanese grappler Shota Shirai in the quarter-final bout.

Deepak Punia had beaten Indonesia’s Randa Riandesta 11-0 and Bahrain’s Magomed Magomed R Sharipov 3-2 in the pre-quarterfinals and qualification rounds, respectively, at Hangzhou.

Meanwhile, fellow Indian wrestler Yash lost to Tajikistan’s Magomet in the men’s freestyle 74kg quarterfinal on Saturday.

Another grappler, Sumit, went down fighting to Kyrgyzstan’s Aiaal Lazarev in the men’s freestyle 125kg pre-quarterfinals while Vicky lost to Kazakhstan’s Alisher Yergali in his men’s freestyle 97kg pre-quarterfinals.