PWL: Delhi ends campaign with win, U.P. finishes last

Sakshi Malik won her last bout of the Pro Wrestling League to remain unbeaten as Delhi Sultans managed to end its disappointing campaign with a 4-3 victory and avoid the wooden spoon against bottom-placed U.P. Dangal.

Delhi's Sakshi Malik had an easy win against U. P.'s Manisha.

Sakshi Malik won her last bout of the Pro Wrestling League to remain unbeaten as Delhi Sultans managed to end its disappointing campaign with a 4-3 victory and avoid the wooden spoon against bottom-placed U.P. Dangal at the KD Jadhav Indoor Stadium here on Sunday.

With both sides not winning a single match and already out of contention for advancing to the next round, it was a battle for pride and Delhi managed to edge ahead. Sakshi proved her worth, winning by Fall in one minute 39 seconds against Manisha in the 58kg, while leading 12-0. This was supposed to be the most-awaited clash of the competition, between Sakshi and Geeta Phogat, but in the absence of Geeta, who withdrew right at the beginning of the tournament — ostensibly due to fitness concerns — it ended up being a no-contest between Sakshi and the inexperienced Manisha.

Praveen Rana finally got a victory under his belt, overpowering Georgian Tariel Gaprindashvili 12-6 in the 74kg to end his PWL on a winning note, while Mariya Stadnik overwhelmed Elitsa Yankova 11-1 in the 48kg for the other Delhi victories. With the match tied on three bouts apiece, David Tlashadze threw Amit Dhankar overhead for a four-point take down and then managed to hold on to his lead for a 8-6 win despite the best efforts from an attacking Dhankar in the final bout of the day to help Delhi win.

For U.P., Babita came back to action and fell back on all her experience to edge past younger sister Sangeeta 6-4 in the battle of Phogats in the 53kg but there was little to cheer for the Commmonwealth Games medallist, who struggled to get a firm hold on her opponent. With an eight-year difference between the two, Sangeeta proved herself up to the task and came back twice from a deficit before Babita dug deep to get the winning points.

Amit Kumar Dahiya also won, managing a take down of Mongolian Erdenebat Bekhbayar in the last three seconds to win 3-1. Andrey Kviatkovski needed just a minute to send Surjeet Grewal packing, scoring 16-0 to win by technical superiority in the 65kg for the other U.P. win. It was the second-quickest victory in the PWL so far and the fastest for technical superiority.

All it took was one take down for the Ukrainian to open with a four-pointer and then he kept going around the mat, rolling Grewal along as he did so, six times over to measure the circumference of the mat and accumulate 12 points to end the bout.