Saweety, Meena in semifinals of Strandja Memorial Boxing

Former world silver-medallist Saweety Boora (75kg) and Meena Kumar Devi (54kg) assured themselves of medals by entering the semifinals on a second successive day of mixed results for Indian boxers at the 69th Strandja Memorial Tournament here.

Meena defeated Italian Giulia Lamagna 5-0 to make the last-four stage, along with Saweety, who outpunched American Leah Cooper in her quarterfinal bout.

Advancing to the quarterfinals was Lovlina Borgohain (69kg), who got the better of another American Oshae Jones 5-0 in her last-16 stage fight. Borgohain and Saweety had claimed gold medals at last month’s India Open in New Delhi.

Among the men, last edition’s silver-medallist Mohammad Hussamuddin (56kg) outpunched China’s Xu Boxiang in a thoroughly lopsided encounter. Boxiang was lucky not get a warning for failing to keep his head up for most of the bout.

However, there were a couple of setbacks as well for the country as world championships silver-medallist Sonia Lather (57kg) bowed out with an opening-round loss along with Pwilao Basumatary (64kg). Both the boxers lost in split 2-3 verdicts.

Sonia, who had lost early in the India Open too, went down to China’s Xu Zichun for a second successive preliminary exit from an international competition.

She was joined by Basumatary, a gold-medallist at the India Open last month. The Assam-boxer was beaten by Norway’s Elisabeth Angelsen in her opening contest.

In the men’s competition, world youth bronze-medallist Naman Tanwar (91kg) became the first to bow out. The youngster lost to Russia’s Ivan Sagaidak in a round of 16 clash.