India's Hardeep Singh was pipped by Ildem Cenk of Turkey 2-1, and failed to advance to the quarterfinals of the men's Greco-Roman 98 kg wrestling at the 2016 Olympics in Rio on Tuesday.
Cenk, who has won the bronze medal at the World Championships in both 2011 and 2014, went into the pre-quarterfinal bout as favourite but conceded the first penalty on two minutes, when the referee made him take up the 'par terre' position, but Hardeep failed to score from the opportunity. With twenty seconds on the clock, Hardeep was penalised and put in the 'par terre', and this time Cenk was able to turn Hardeep's body right on the verge of time running out to lodge his first two points of the match.
In the second period, Cenk was penalised for his third warning, allowing Hardeep to open his account. But the Turkish wrestler then kept his defence going for the remaining portion of the bout to advance to the last eight.
Hardeep did not feature in the repechage as Cenk lost in the semi final to Armenia's Artur Aleksanyan.