Punjab Royals registered an easy 5-2 win over Haryana Hammers and confirmed their semi-final berth in the Pro Wrestling League as captain Geeta Phogat caused a surprise win over World Championship gold medallist Oksana Herhel.
The costliest buy of the PWL, Herhel failed to live up to her top billing, going down to Punjab Royals captain and icon player Geeta 6-8 in Women’s 58kg.
Geeta showed some excellent skills and solid defence to concede only a slight 1-2 advantage to Herhel at the end of round one.
Second round was a hard-fought battle, where Geeta stunned Herhel by bagging four points to lead 5-2 at one stage before the 21-year-old of Ukraine earned four points on the trot to go 6-5 up.
But in the last few seconds of the bout, Geeta managed to overpower her higher-ranked rival, earning two more points in her favour to wrap it up style.
With this bout, Punjab took a 3-1 lead.
Mausam Khatri then capped off a comprehensive victory for Punjab Royals as he outplayed Haryana Hammers’ Yuri Maier 12-1 by technical superiority.
The Indian grappler proved too strong for the Argentine, finishing off the bout in 4:06 minutes.
Vasilisa Marzaliuk, World Championship bronze medallist, had an easy outing against Geetika Jakhar of Haryana, bagging the bout 7-0 in Women’s 69kg to extend Punjab’s lead by 5-1.
In the last bout, captain Yogeshwar Dutt reduced the margin of defeat for Haryana Hammers by getting the better of Rajneesh of Punjab Royals 6-3.
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