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An 86kg metallic medallist astatine the 2019 World championships and 2022 Asian Games, Deepak Punia made a beardown comeback by reaching the 92kg freestyle last connected the opening time of the Senior Open Ranking wrestling tourney connected the Nandini Nagar Mahavidyalaya field present connected Sunday (May 10, 2026).
Looking successful bully shape, Punia — who was stranded astatine the Dubai International Airport with Sujeet Kalkal owed to terrible flooding successful April 2024 and could not marque it to the Asian Olympic qualifier successful Bishkek — gave dominating performances to bushed Rahul 10-0, Sachin Kumar 11-0, Abhishek (who withdrew owed to an injury), Rahul Hooda ‘by fall’ and Raja 11-0 to acceptable up a rubric clash with Vansh.
The biggest upset of the time happened erstwhile erstwhile Asian bronze medallist and Asian under-23 champion 24-year-old Anirudh Kumar mislaid to a lesser known Rohit successful a 125kg circular of 16 bout.
Day 1 Photo Dump 📸
The preliminary enactment has been relentless, and we are present midway done the bouts arsenic the tract narrows down for the Round of 8. pic.twitter.com/dW80WEzSpW
Anirudh got past Harsh and Pushpender earlier suffering an 8-4 defeat. Rohit fell to Shubham 3-4 successful the quarterfinal, ending Anirudh’s chances of making it to the repechage circular and warring for a bronze.
Incidentally, the tournament, which was scheduled to beryllium held successful 2023 but was stopped due to the fact that of the wrestlers’ protest, returned to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) calendar astatine the aforesaid venue.
Multiple bouts underway astatine the Senior Open Ranking Wrestling tourney conducted not successful a a stadium but successful a lengthy shed, successful Nandini Nagar, Gonda, Uttar Pradesh connected Sunday, May 10, 2026. | Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA
The playing arena, which was expected to pull each the attraction due to the fact that of Vinesh Phogat’s comeback from status earlier the ace wrestler was considered ineligible, received a monolithic fig of entries arsenic wrestlers participating present basal to get a accidental to enactment successful World championships and Commonwealth championships enactment trials.
Following a delayed commencement of 2 hours, altogether 593 freestyle wrestlers from 10 value categories went done their bouts done the time and precocious into the evening earlier the federation decided to behaviour bouts up to semifinals and clasp the medal matches connected Monday morning.
