Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Continuing her majestic march at the biggest stage, Vinesh Phogat advanced to the maiden semifinals of the women’s freestyle 50kg match after beating Ukraine’s Oksana Vasylivna Livach 7-5 in her second bout of the day at the Olympics on August 6.
Vinesh, who started the day by stunning Japan’s four-time World Champion and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Yui Susaki, took an initial lead of 2-0 in the first period of the match against Oksana, who won her first bout 10-0 on technical superiority.
The second period was a bit challenging for Vinesh as Oksana fought back and took a 2-pointer after the Indian grappler had stretched her lead to 4-0 with two minutes and two seconds remaining in the match. The 29-year-old Vinesh recovered quickly to counter and got one more point to her name to take the lead 5-2.
In the last few seconds of the bout, the Ukrainian attacked fiercely but Vinesh managed to hold on to her defence and counter-attacked to get a 2-pointer via technical superiority.
With 10 seconds left in the match, the Ukrainian grappler came up with a big move but Vinesh defended well and restricted her to one point. And that was enough for Vinesh to win the match 7-5.
Earlier, Vinesh advanced to the quarterfinal by registering a 3-2 upset win over Yui Susaki, the undisputed queen in 50 kg, who has still now lost only five bouts in her career since 2010.
