Jitender Kumar stunned former World Championship bronze medallist Nauman Karim of Pakistan to advance to the light-flyweight category quarter-finals of the second Asian Olympic Boxing qualifiers at Astana, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday.
The Haryana boxer beat Karim, a bronze medallist in the 2003 World Championships, on points in a bout marred by a computer failure that necessitated manual scoring.
Jitender trailed 4-6 in the first round before staging a comeback and leading 17-9 by the end of the third round. He was declared winner but the jury did not announce the final score.
"We couldn't get the complete score as the jury did not declare it but I am happy that Jitender won a very tough bout," India's coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu said from Astana.
Jitender will now take on China's Gao Linzhi, who got a first-round byes, on March 20.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Indians in the fray also got first-round byes.
Manoj Kumar (64kg), national champion Dilbag Singh (69kg), Doha Asiad bronze winner Vijender (75kg), Dinesh Kumar (81kg) and Praveen Kumar (+91kg) were all through to the next stage after getting byes in the first round.
While Manoj will square off against Djuraev Hurshed of Tajikistan, Vijender will take on Mongolian Nandin Munguntsooi in the quarter-finals on March 20.
Dinesh Kumar is also through to the quarterfinals and will be up against Syrian Hasan Mohammad.
Meanwhile, Praveen and Dilbag are into the semi-finals. While Praveen has a tough bout in hand with Kazakh Ruslan Myrsatayev as his opponent, Dilbag has to beat Japan's Hirano Yoshiyuki for a place in the final.
Nineteen Olympic quota places are up for grabs in the tournament, where only a gold or silver finish will ensure a ticket to Beijing in the eight out of 10 categories being contested.
In the welterweight and super-heavy categories, only the gold medallist would qualify for the Olympics to be held in August.
