Haryana’s Deepak Punia, top, beat Rahul Hooda in the men’s 92 kg free style category quarterfinal in the Senior Open Ranking Wrestling tournament. | Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA

An 86kg silver medallist at the 2019 World championships and 2022 Asian Games, Deepak Punia made a strong comeback by reaching the 92kg freestyle final on the opening day of the Senior Open Ranking wrestling tournament on the Nandini Nagar Mahavidyalaya campus here on Sunday.

Looking in good shape, Punia – who was stranded at the Dubai International Airport with Sujeet Kalkal due to severe flooding in April 2024 and could not make it to the Asian Olympic qualifier in Bishkek – gave dominating performances to beat Rahul 10-0, Sachin Kumar 11-0, Abhishek (who withdrew due to an injury), Rahul Hooda ‘by fall’ and Raja 11-0 to set up a title clash with Vansh.

The biggest upset of the day happened when former Asian bronze medallist and Asian under-23 champion 24-year-old Anirudh Kumar lost to a lesser known Rohit in a 125kg round of 16 bout. Anirudh got past Harsh and Pushpender before suffering an 8-4 defeat. Rohit fell to Shubham 3-4 in the quarterfinal, ending Anirudh’s chances of making it to the repechage round and fighting for a bronze.

Incidentally, the tournament, which was scheduled to be held in 2023 but was stopped because of the wrestlers’ protest, returned to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) calendar at the same venue.

The playing arena, which was supposed to attract all the attention because of Vinesh Phogat’s comeback from retirement before the ace wrestler was considered ineligible, received a massive number of entries as wrestlers participating here will stand to get a chance to participate in World championships and Commonwealth championships selection trials.

Following a delayed start of two hours, altogether 593 freestyle wrestlers from 10 weight categories went through their bouts through the day and late into the evening before the federation decided to conduct bouts up to semifinals and hold the medal matches on Monday morning.

Published on May 10, 2026