Borgohain had been given a direct entry to the semi-finals at the Commonwealth Games before losing the final to Australia's Emma-Sue Greentree. (File/AP)Lovlina Borgohain beat the reigning 70kg world champion Kazakh Natalya Bogdanova 3-2 in the women’s 75kg semi-final on Wednesday, becoming the first Indian woman boxer to reach consecutive Asian Games finals. Mary Kom, in 2014, was the only Indian woman to reach one before her.Borgohain had been given a direct entry to the semi-finals at the Commonwealth Games before losing the final to Australia’s Emma-Sue Greentree. She is now only the second woman boxer to reach the final at this Asian Games, after Parveen Hooda.Bogdanova, a southpaw, worked her at close range in the first round and took it 2-3. Borgohain moved to the outside in the second, landing at distance, and took it 10-9 on all five scorecards. Bogdanova came back to take the third 2-3, but Borgohain held her off the whole round. In the fourth, two of the three remaining judges gave it to her, enough for the win.“Lovlina had sparred against the Kazakh here, and we knew she would come into this bout with an offensive mindset and southpaw style. So the plan was to box from the outside. The Kazakh came with good mid-range and close-range work in the first round, which is difficult against a southpaw, and Lovlina fell towards the last seconds of the first round and lost it. But then Lovlina boxed much better from outside and scored with her side-step left hook and the long-range hook too, and the Kazakh slowed down. She displayed her longer range with straight left and straight right too. We knew she needed better scores from at least one of the three remaining judges to win the bout, and she worked from the outside. I am not happy with the last minute, where the bout became a little messy. But considering what Lovlina did, I thought it was a good job,” said Santiago Nieva, India’s women’s foreign head coach, speaking from Tokyo.Borgohain will now face China’s Ziyi Bao. In Hangzhou, she lost the final to Chinese boxer Li Qian.“Lovlina operates better in long range with her good footwork. The key will be not to let the bout begin messy in this weight, and to keep her composure and manage the bout on her strengths,” Nieva said.Commonwealth Games champion Priya Ghanghas lost 1-4 to former world champion Chengyu Yang of China in the women’s 60kg semi-final. Kapil Pokhriya lost 1-4 to reigning world champion Turabek Khabibullaev of Uzbekistan in the 90kg semi-final.Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a three-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively. His latest Laadli Award, in November 2025, came for an article on Deepthi Jeevanji, who won India’s first gold medal at the World Athletics Para Championship and was taunted for her unusual features as a child. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read More