Chetan and Pulkit won silver medals in the 63kg Greco-Roman and the women’s 65kg freestyle categories, respectively, at the Zagreb Open 2026 wrestling tournament in Croatia on Friday.
Anjli (women’s 62kg) and Nisha Dahiya (women’s 68kg) also secured bronze in their respective weight classes as India’s medal tally at the first UWW Ranking Series of the year rose to 11, one gold, four silver and six bronze medals.
Chetan ensured that India made a strong start to their Greco-Roman campaign with a silver following an impressive run in the 63kg category. After edging Kazakhstan’s Dastan Zarlykhanov 7-6 in the qualifiers, Chetan produced a commanding 9-0 victory over Serbia’s Dejan Berkec in the quarterfinals.
He then stunned former world champion Meysam Dalkhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran 14-5 in the semifinals to reach the gold medal bout. Chetan had to settle for silver after going down 8-4 to Iran’s Erfan Behnam Jarkani in the final.
Meanwhile, Pulkit, an Under-17 World Wrestling Championships gold medallist, clinched the women’s 65kg silver via the Nordic system. The Indian wrestler secured wins against Sweden’s Agnes Nygren (10-1) and Kriszta Incze (2-0) of Romania before receiving a victory by injury against Croatia’s Marijana Sumski.
However, a 3-1 loss to Nana Ikehata of Japan in her first match of the day meant that Pulkit had to settle for the silver.
In the women’s 62kg category, Anjli began her campaign with a dominant 12-0 win over Croatia’s Lana Nogic and edged past Brazil’s Lais Nunes 5-3 in the quarterfinals. She failed to qualify for the final after losing 10-0 against Olympian Johanna Lindborg of Sweden in the semis before beating compatriot Bhagyashree Fand 5-4 in the bronze medal match.
Bhagyashree Fand had qualified for the bronze medal match via repechage. She had earlier beaten USA’s Alara Boyd in the qualifiers and lost to Johanna Lindborg in the quarterfinals.
Asian Championships silver medallist Nisha Dahiya also battled through repechage to reach the bronze medal match in the women’s 68kg. Earlier, she had beaten Azerbaijan’s Birgul Soltanova 8-1 in the pre-quarters but lost 10-0 to Olympian Nesrin Baş of Turkiye in the quarterfinals.
After overcoming Germany’s Laura Koehler in the repechage, Nisha won bronze after Olympic silver medallist Kennedy Blades of USA gave a walkover due to injury.
On the opening day of the Zagreb Open, U23 world champion Sujeet Kalkal won India’s only gold medal so far in the 65kg weight division, while Paris 2024 bronze medallist Aman Sehrawat clinched a silver in the 61kg category.
(Source: Olympics.com)
