By Satya Rath/Doha


For India, it was both a memorable and heartbreaking day. Memorable, because their 56kg bantamweight boxer Shiva Thapa made it to the semi-finals to assure himself of a medal; and heartbreaking, as the other medal hope, Vikas Krishan, bowed out despite a valiant effort in his 75kg middleweight bout.
Thapa becomes only the third Indian boxer ever to assure himself of a World Championships medal after Vijender Singh (2009) and Krishan (2011). And he did it by sending off home hope Hakan Erseker, seeded fourth, in a virtually one-sided bout.
One more win will fetch him an Olympic quota place, and should he lose in today’s semifinals, the 21-year-old will have to win a box-off for a ticket to next year’s Rio Games.
For Thapa, the Qatari capital seems to be a happy hunting ground. He won the gold in the Doha International Tournament, a test event for the World Championships, held in May, and looked in ferocious touch yesterday in his clinical decimation of local favourite Erseker.
He was much faster than his Qatari opponent, who looked clearly intimidated by the pint-sized Indian’s wave of punches. Using his left hooks and jabs to telling effect, and throwing caution to the wind, Thapa cut down on the intensity in the final three minutes but still managed to get the judges’ unanimous nod.
 “He was a local guy and I knew there would lot of crowd support for him, but I was under no pressure. I just kept my focus and tried to hit as many clean punches as possible. I was clear about my strategy and what I needed to do, and once I realised he was not attacking too much, I let my guard down to bait him and counter-punched aggressively every time he fell into the trap,” was how Thapa analysed his bout.
Having come this far, he is no mood to stop now. “The job is still not over. I need to go all the way, I need to confirm an Olympic quota spot,” added Thapa, a product of the Army Sports Institute in Pune. He faces Uzbekistan’s Murodjon next.
However, it was heartbreak for the other Indian medal hope, Krishan, who went down to Egypt’s Hosam Abdin. The Indian looked the more productive of the two with a fair share of punches in the first two rounds, but looked like tiring a bit in the third and Abdin seized his chance to land some telling blows which had the final say in the end.
The 24-year-old Krishan, who suffered a deep cut near his right eye during the close bout, was distraught with the verdict. “It was a close fight and I think I landed some convincing punches. I believed that I was in contention in the first two rounds. In the third, I had to go all out. It is a disappointing result but I have to take this in my stride and aim to correct a few mistakes I made. I am confident that I will be qualifying for the Rio Olympics as there are a couple of qualifiers coming up,” he said.