By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Filipina boxing star Nesthy Petecio guaranteed the Philippines another medal in the ongoing Paris Olympics after punching a ticket to the semifinal round of the women’s featherweight event on August 4, 2024, at the North Paris Arena.
Petecio instantly meant business during her women’s boxing quarterfinal round match and pulled off a masterful performance over Chinese bet Xu Zichun after scoring a lopsided 5-0 unanimous decision victory.
Coming off a courageous win over home bet Amina Zidani of France to reach the quarterfinals, Petecio picked up where she left off and out-maneuvered the Chinese challenger which led to a sweeping decision win.
The opening round was more of a “left hook clinic” as Petecio overwhelmed Zichun with a barrage of left hands that kept on connecting to her jaw.
With both feet planted on the canvas, Petecio made it known that she was in for an all-out war and didn’t backpedal every time Zichun initiated the slugfest.
However, the more experienced Petecio scored the more solid punches and landed more combinations to secure the first-round win.
The second round was just like the earlier round as Petecio tagged Zichun with more solid punches, this time, with the snappy right straight.
With the variation of offense that the Filipina deployed in the match, the Chinese pug didn’t know where the punches would come from Petecio.
In the final 30 seconds, Petecio once again solidified her ending performance with more jabs connected to seal the 2-0 lead in the scorecards.
Zichun entered the third and final round with a sense of urgency and just threw more punches but most of them failed to connect as Petecio wisely avoided unexpected danger.
When Zichun turned the fight into a slugfest as she pressed inside Petecio’s distance, the Filipina pulled off more tricks on her sleeve as she used her fluid head movement to retrieve her balance back to throwing her left hooks.
Petecio will next be facing Julia Szeremeta of Poland in the semifinal round on August 8, 2024, and is only a win away from another shot at the Olympic gold medal.
