Gaurav Bidhuri became only the fourth Indian male boxer ever to secure himself a medal after defeating Tunisia's Bilel Mhamdi in the bantamweight (56kg) quarterfinal at the Boxing World Championships in Hamburg on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Amit Panghal (49kg) and Kavinder Bisht (52kg) both lost their respective quarterfinal bouts.
Gaurav further became only the second Indian to make the semi-final in his debut World Championships -- the only other Indian being Vikas Krishan in the 2011 edition.
Besides Vikas, Vijender Singh (2009) and Shiva Thapa (2015) have been the country's other medallists at the marquee event of the sport, winning a bronze each.
Among other Indians in the fray, Amit Phangal (49kg), another impressive Indian debutant in the event, bowed out in the quarterfinal stage after going down 0-5 to Olympic champion and second seed Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekistan.
Gaurav took the ring next for India and was on the offensive from the word go. He had his opponent on the ropes on more than one occasion with his combination of punches -- leaving him with a cut on his forehead in the opening round. Mhamdi then received a warning for failing to keep his head up in the second round.
The Tunisian, however, upped the ante in the final three minutes and delivered some good right hooks but Gaurav had done enough by then to seal the issue in his favour.
Originally, Gaurav hadn't even qualified for the tournament to start with. Ousted in the Asian Championships quarterfinal stage, Gaurav had also gone on to lose the box-off for a World Championships spot. He was, later on, handed a wildcard by the Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) that was originally meant for Bhutan, after the country declined the offer.
He had previously defeated Ukraine's Mykola Butsenko, a two-time European Championships' silver-medallist and 2013 World Championships bronze medallist in his pre-quarterfinal bout and will next face USA's Duke Ragan on August 31.