New Delhi: Asian Games gold-medallist Vikas Krishan (69kg) notched up a comfortable win but the Indian boxing team also had its first moment of disappointment at the World Championships as Paramjeet Samota (+91kg) crashed out with an opening-round loss in Baku, Azerbaijan on Thursday.
Vikas, the lightweight (60kg) gold-medallist at the Asian Games last year, made his welterweight debut in style, beating Kyrgyzstan's Asadullo Boimurodov 16-8.
But Samota, an Asian Games silver-medallist and a Commonwealth Games gold-medallist, could not end the day on a high for the Indian camp, going down 12-14 in a thrilling contest against Vitalijus Subacius of Lithuania.
Vikas now faces seventh seed Mohamed Nurudzinau of Belarus on October 2 in his second-round bout. Nurudzinau, a silver-medallist at this year's European Confederation Boxing championships, defeated Albania's Astmer Bilali 16-7 in his opening bout.
The 19-year-old Vikas, who is also a reigning national champion, led 8-3 in the opening three minutes and his domination only increased as he added another four points to his tally in the second round to make it 12-5.
Boimurodov fought back in the final three minutes but the effort was too little, too late as the Indian registered a comfortable win.
Samota, meanwhile, was down a couple of points at 1-3 in the opening round itself. But the Haryana-lad fought back in the second round to register six points against his rival's five and narrow the overall gap to 7-8.
But Subacius had the last laugh as he edged past the Indian 6-5 in the final three minutes to clinch the bout and enter the next round.
Vikas joins L Devendro (49kg), Suranjoy Singh (52kg), Akhil Kumar (56kg) and Dinesh Kumar (81kg) in the second round.
On Friday, just one Indian boxer will be in action.
Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manoj Kumar will take on Bahamas' Valentino Knowles in his opening bout of the light welterweight (64kg) division.
Knowles had finished a bronze-medallist at the CWG Delhi 2010.
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