Asian Wrestling C'ships: Deepak Punia, Udit win silver medals

India made a good bounce back at the 2025 Asian Wrestling Championships as four grapplers from the country made it to medal matches of the continental competition in Amman, Jordan on Sunday.

After a horrible first day of men's freestyle action, Indian wrestlers redeemed themselves thanks to the brilliant performance from the former medalists, Udit (61 kg) and Deepak Punia (92 Kg).

The Olympian Deepak Punia made a comeback to the circuit after a long injury break, and he found his rhythm from the get-go to clinch a silver medal from the competition, which was his fifth continental medal.

On the other hand, youngster Udit also reached the finals of the Asian Championships for the second consecutive edition. But, once again, he has to settle for a silver medal, similar to his performance last year.

Meanwhile, debutant Dinesh won his maiden Asian medal by clinching a bronze medal in 125 Kg. With this, India ended the competition with 10 medals: 1 Gold, 3 Silver, and 6 Bronze.

Earlier in the day, four Indian wrestlers made it to the semi-finals after a brilliant performance in the preliminary round.

In the semifinals, Udit fought a tactical battle and marginally edged past (2-0) the Chinese wrestler Wanhao Zou, whereas Deepak made light work (8-0) of his Japanese opponent Ishiguro to reach the final.

However, Mukul (86 Kg) and Dinesh could not move forward and lost their respective matches to Iranian and Mongolian wrestlers, respectively, in the semi-finals.

Later, Mukul faced another very close defeat (2-4) to the Japanese opponent in the bronze medal match, finishing fifth in the competition.

Jaideep (74 Kg) was the only wrestler who could not manage a win on the day and was knocked out from the completion in the round of 16, losing a very close (5-10) match to Japan's Hikaru Takata.