Karaikudi: National Games silver medallist Santosh Harijan opened his campaign with a brilliant win against Vijay Dobale of Maharashtra in the fly weight division at the 58th Sahara Senior Men’s National Boxing Championship here on Tuesday.

The Goan boxer, who has had a favourable year with a gold medal in Indonesian and a bronze in Kazakhstan, was once again seen in exceptional form. His hard hitting punches proved to be a potent weapon against Dobale. Harijan secured a win and a spot in the next round with a score of 10:5. In the same category, reigning national champion Madan Lal playing for the IBF team had no trouble breaking through the brittle defence of Rajnish Sharma. The 20 year old boxer from Haryana was leading 4-0 in the first round, when M Bhardwaj, the referee of the bout decided to spare Sharma of any further agony awarding the victory to Lal.

In the bantam weight class, promising young boxer from Assam, Shiva Thapa sailed into the second round defeating A Sudarshan of Chhattisgarh. Thapa, a gold medallist at the 2011 Belgrade Winner, completely outclassed Sudarshan, in the end winning the bout 16:7 on points. Service boxer Chhote Lal Yadav went up against Deva Naik of Goa in his opening round bout. The feisty 2010 South Asian boxing champion, with his nimble footwork and quick reflexes overpowered Naik and beat him 17:7 on points to advance to the nest round.

Bronze medallist at the Giraldo Córdova Cardin Memorial Tournament Kuldeep Singh representing railways and last year’s Senior Nationals bronze medallist Ran Bahadur Thapa from Meghalaya also registered easy victories in the middle weight cadre to make way into the next round of the championship. While Singh devoured Seetha Ram Anjenayalo of Orissa, Thapa hammered Munish Sharma of Haryana in a one sided contest.