Completely fearless, the defending champion from MEG dominated the bout from the first bell, sealing victory after the referee stopped the contest midway through the third round at the Sree Kanteerava stadium.
Oozing with confidence, Karthik entered the bout with an open stance, throwing punches at will and leaving Hemachandran clueless. Toying with his opponent, the 20-year-old Karthik kept picking up points with consistent ease until the end of second round.
Almost out of the contest, Hemachandran decided to change gears in the final round and surprised Karthik with a couple of solid blows. However, Karthik returned in kind with a stinging right-hander to leave Hemachandran breathless before laying him flat with a sharp blow to the chin, at which point the referee stepped in.
Another Karnataka pugilist V Santosh Kumar too registered a thumping win over D Dharma in the 64 kg semifinal, with the referee stopping the contest midway through the third round.
Results (all semifinals, Karnataka unless stated): 48 kg: Amarjit Singh bt Sridhar on points, Pradeep Singh (Ker) bt Sainish (A&N) on points.
51 kg: Mahimainathan bt Prashanth by RSC, Sanjay Kolthe (TN) bt S Rama (AP) on points.
54 kg: Attisamuddin (TN) bt Santosh Kumar (A&N) on points, M Rahman bt Raj Kumar on points.
57 kg: Rojit Kumar bt Thyagarajan (TN) on points, Pritam Sahu (Ker) bt CK Reddy (AP).
60 kg: M Karthik bt Hemachandran (TN) by RSC, Saravanan (Ker) bt K Surender (AP) on points.
64 kg: V Santosh Kumar bt D Dharma (AP) by RSC, Arjun bt Anil KR on points.
69kg: Ramalingam bt Lokesh on points, G Vivek bt Sajesh (TN) on points.
75 kg: Karthikeyan (TN) bt R Viswananth (Ker) by RSC, M Govind Raj bt Sunil Olla (A&N) on points.
81 kg: Srinivas (AP) bt Mishra (Ker) retd, Prasanth Patil bt Vinoth Kumar (Pud)on points .
91 kg: Ganesh (Pud) bt Karthikeyan on points, Sunil bt Sharanyan (Ker) on points.
