Indian wrestlers draw blank on opening day of Asian Championship

Gurpreet Singh lost his bronze medal fight 0-5 to Kyrgyzstan's Kairatbek Tugolbaev, while Sandeep suffered a 5-11 defeat in the 50kg third-place play-off.

Indian wrestler Gurpreet Singh lost a hard-fought semifinal (7-7) on criteria to Iran's Pejman Poshtam in the 77kg event of the Asian Championships (Representative Image).

Gurpreet Singh and Sandeep lost their bronze medal bouts as Indian wrestlers drew a blank on the opening day of the Asian Championship in Almaty on Tuesday.

In 77kg, Gurpreet Singh lost his bronze play-off 0-5 to Kyrgyzstan's Kairatbek Tugolbaev. He earlier lost a hard-fought semifinal (7-7) on criteria to Iran's Pejman Poshtam.

Sandeep suffered defeat in the 50kg bronze medal fight 5-11 to Nurmukhammet Abdullaev of Kyrgyzstan after losing the semifinal by technical superiority to Japan's Yu Shiotani.

In 63kg, Neeraj was ousted at the Qualification stage, losing by technical superiority to Korea's Hanjae Chung.

In 87kg, Sunil Kumar made an exit after losing his quarterfinal 1-3 to Uzbekistan's Rustam Assakalov while Naveen Kumar (130kg) lost his last-eight stage match by technical superiority to Uzbekistan's Sukhrob Fattoev.