Tokyo Karate 1 Premier League 2019: Pakistani Karatika, Saadi Abbas improves his Olympic ranking
Former Asian champion, Saadi Abbas of Pakistan secured quiet some points to improve his Olympic ranking in Karate 1 Premier League 2019 in Tokyo, Japan.
Pakistan’s premier karateka, Ghulam Saadi Abbas targeted victory in Karate 1 Premier League 2019 which concluded successfully in Tokyo city of Japan, where several talented karatikas from various nations competed alongside Saadi, against each other to qualify for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
As this Karate 1 Premier League is a Karate competition introduced by the World Karate Federation in 2011 to provide a homogeneous system for qualification to the Olympic Karate tournament, it provided a chance for the fighters to improve their rankings for the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where Saadi Abbas who is Pakistan's sole hope for the upcoming Olympics secured at least 140 ranking points to improve his rankings.
Abbas went into the fights of -75 KG category where he was unable to win all of his competitions but although he did not manage to win overall, his wins against Croatian and Turkish opponents helped him to further take up more points.
Saadi outgunned Garibovic Enes of Croatia by 1-0 in the opening round and convincingly won the second round against Turkey’s Bulut Enes by 4-0 but his performance fell when
he lost to the third opponent, a karatika from America named Scott Thomas, who is currently ranked 6th, by 3-2 after initially taking 2-0 lead in the fight.
Pakistan's Saadi is currently ranked 18th and would be seen further competing in Karate 1 League in Moscow next month.
