New Delhi: Vikas Krishan Yadav the 23-year-old middleweight (75-kg) boxer supported by JSW moved into the semi-finals of the Asian Boxing Championship after a thrilling 3-0 victory over Vietnamese boxer Truang Dinh Hoang. With this win, Vikas also qualifies for the AIBA World Boxing Championships which will be held in October in Doha. Vikas had earlier downed Arlsanbek Achilov from Turkmenistan by the same score-line in the pre-quarters.

In an engaging display, Vikas dug deep to come from behind in the first round and mounted an aggressive challenge in the second and third round to take home a unanimous victory. Speaking about his opponent, Vikas said that he took time to get going in the first round and that was where the Vietnamese boxer took a slight advantage. "He was quite fast and I was just a little loose in the first round. However, after a minute or so, I had sized him up and after that I knew the areas that I needed to target," he said.

Krishan said that his earlier plan of putting in extra power in his punches was actually working against him as the slightly faster Vietnamese boxer was getting time to adjust. "It was in the second round that I decided to change my tactics. Instead of hitting hard, I chose my moments and attacked him with uppercuts. That seemed to work and after that, I think I was in control of the bout," he concluded.