Indian wrestler Aman Sehrawat came up with a commanding performance to bag the gold medal in the Zagreb Open Ranking Series tournament, defeating China's world No. 7 Wanhao Zou 10-0 in Zagreb.
Sehrawat's victory by technical superiority came as a bright moment for the embattled Indian wrestling community, which has been grappling with a host of issues, including the suspension of the newly-elected federation by the sports ministry and protests by junior grapplers.
The Indian contingent is competing under the United World Wrestling (UWW) banner as the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) was suspended by the global body last year for not adhering to the time-line set for elections.
The 13th ranked Aman started off with a 15-4 win, against a higher-ranked Muhammet Karavus of Turkey. Aman achieved technical superiority within 21 seconds of the second period of three minutes.
The champion wrestler, a bronze medallist at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year in the 57kg category, then secured a place in the semifinal defeating 19th ranked American grappler Richards Zane Raye Rhodes by technical superiority (11-0).
In the last-four, Aman met another lower-ranked grappler, Roberti Dingashvili of Georgia, winning the bout 11-0 against the world No. 16.
Against world No. 7 Wanhao Zou, Aman had his task cut out but the 20-year old, known for spending hours on the mat perfecting his skills, gave the Chinese a tough time, winning the bout 10-0.
Asian Games silver and Commonwealth Games gold medallist freestyle grappler Deepak Punia could not make it to the 86kg medal round after he lost in his first bout to Kazakhstan's Azamat Dauletbekov.
In the repechage round, he won one bout and lost the other to go out of contention for a medal.
