For Dinesh Kumar, the first-round defeat at the Beijing Olympics to Algeria’s Abdelhafid Benchabla still hurts.

Though the Haryana boxer avenged his defeat in the 2008 Moscow World Cup in the quarters against the Algerian, the 21-year-old kept his chances of getting another shot at Benchabla alive at the world championship in Milan with a resounding 15-7 win over Vladimir Reznicek of Czech Republic on Sunday. Dinesh is now into the pre-quarters in the light heavy-weight category, and if it goes to plan, Dinesh could meet the Algerian in the semi-finals.

“It has been on my mind right from the start of the championship. Beijing was something which I will never forget and I am eager to play him again. This win has set things up for me,” Dinesh said from Milan.

Aggressive intent

The Moscow bronze medallist, who was out of the sport for more than three months because of an injury, made an attacking start to his bout on Sunday. Capitalising on Reznicek’s weak defence, Dinesh was even more aggressive in the second round and opened up a four-point lead there, before racing to a 15-7 win.

“I will be playing continuously in the next few days and that will be good for me. Frequent breaks spoil our rhythm and it will be good playing regularly,” Dinesh said.

On Saturday, 2008 world youth champion Nanao bowed out of the championship with a 16-4 loss to Thailand’s Pongprayoon Kaeo, the fifth Indian boxer to lose. “We had talked about playing an attacking game in the opening round, but Kaeo never gave me a chance to do so. He is a tall boxer and he capitalised on that and dominated the first round. A good showing here would have also boosted our chances of getting picked up by a franchise in World Series of Boxing and I am disappointed with my performance,” Nanao said.

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