Bishkek Ranking Series | Ravi Dahiya pulls out of tournament due to knee injury
India's Olympic silver medalist Ravi Dahiya pulled out of the Bishkek Ranking Series after he suffered a right knee injury during warm-up for the tournament. On the other hand, in an all-India 61 kg quarterfinal on Sunday, Pankaj shocked U-23 world champion, Aman Sehrawat.
In the qualification round, Ravi was to play Kyrgyzstan's Taiyrbek Zhumashbek. Interestingly, it was his first competition after finishing sixth at the World Championship in Belgrade in September 2022.
"Ravi has recovered from the right knee injury that he sustained in January this year but during the warm-up, he suffered a strain on the same knee. Since Asian Games trials are near, he decided to pull out of the event as he did not want to risk aggravating the injury," said a member of the Indian support staff.
In the 61 kg event, Pankaj first beat Gerogia's Giorgi Goniashvili 8-2, to set up a clash against Aman, and then beat the latter 8-1 to surprise everyone.
Coming to the 70 kg event, Mulayam Yadav beat Kazakhstan's Doszhan Asetov 9-4 in his qualification round and followed that up with a confident 6-2 win over Georgia's Davit Patsinashvili. In the 65 kg category, in which Bajrang Punia plays, Anuj Kumar lost 6-7 to Azerbaijan's Ali Rahimzada.