Almaty (Kazakhstan): Olympian Sumit Sangwan (81kg) and Vikash Malik (60kg) fought through tough contests to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the World Boxing Championships here on Sunday. While Sumit stunned ninth seed Petru Ciobanu of Moldova 2-1, Vikash got the better of Poland's Dawid Michelus by the similar margin.
Vikash opened the day for India and registered a hard-fought win over Michelus. Michelus won the opening round unanimously but the Indian came back strongly to clinch the second.
In the intensely-contested final three minutes, Michelus began to lose the plot and ended up getting warned for head-butting and evasive tactics. That tilted the scales in Vikash's favour, handing him the victory.
Vikash will face fifth seed Miklos Varga of Hungary in the last-16 stage.
Next up was Olympian Sumit and he continued his ascending march by stunning Ciobanu of Moldova.
Yesterday in the evening session, national champion Satish Kumar (+91kg) also booked a prequarters berth when he defeated Tajikistan's Mirodzhidin Karimov 3-0 in the opening round.
Satish will face Belarus' Yan Sudzilouski in the next round.