In a bout filled with clutching and grabbing, Subacius thrilled a vocal contingent of his countrymen by taking control of the fight at the end of the first round with an overhand right that caught Zuyev flush and gave the Lithuanian a 4-2 advantage.
Zuyev, the top-ranked heavyweight, scored points with his left jab, but the southpaw could not adjust to Subacius’s strategy of clutching and punching off the break. Subacius landed another hard right that sent Zuyev staggering back into the ropes late in the fourth.
Top-ranked super heavyweight Roberto Cammarelle of Italy had little trouble with Nelson Hysa of Albania.
Cammarelle, who won bronze medals at both the 2004 Olympics and 2005 world championships, looked relaxed and polished in a 20-2 win.
Super heavyweight David Price of Great Britain took a 16-6 lead into the final round against Marko Tomasovic of Croatia, and the 2006 Commonwealth Games champion posted a 23-11 win.
Ali Mazaheri of Iran, the 2006 Asian Games heavyweight champion, lost 20-8 to Milorad Gajovic of Montenegro. Gajovic took control at the end of the third round, landing a solid right hand that resulted in a standing eight count. Gajovic landed two more big rights in the final round, outscoring Mazaheri 10-1 in the fourth.
Earlier, Thailand’s Suriya Prasathinphimai, a middleweight who made it to the semi-finals of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, was in Olympic form, defeating Georgios Gazis of Greece.
The two traded blows in the opening rounds, but Prasathinphimai pulled ahead early and finished off the second round with a powerful left hook to make the score 13-5.
By round three, the confident Prasathinphimai displayed footwork as he easily evaded Gazis’s punches and won the bout 19-6.
American Raynell Williams defeated French featherweight Khedafi Djelkhir. Djelkhir started quickly, but his aggressive approach backfired and enabled Williams to take a 10-point lead in the first round. Djelkhir was clearly frustrated by the end of the fourth round and lost the match 28-18.World champion runner-up Aleksey Shaydulin struggled to find his balance against Maduma-Nzungami Ghislain of Congo through the first two rounds, but finally prevailed in his preliminary round featherweight bout.
Shaydulin took an insurmountable lead in the third round, connecting with a barrage of point-scoring hits late in the round. He went on to dominate the fourth round as well, winning the match 26-11.
European featherweight champion Albert Selimov of Russia defeated Romania’s Julian Gabriel Stan with a series of punishing blows in the first round. Selimov hit Stan with five straight punches, sending the Romanian to the canvas where the referee stopped the bout.
In another featherweight contest, Uzbekistan’s Behodirjon Sultonov traded a flurry of punches with Jesus Marcelo Andres Cuellar of Argentina, moving ahead late in the first round and prevailing 31-13.
Wednesday was the second day of competition at the World Boxing Championships in Chicago. The top eight finishers in the light flyweight (48kg) to light heavyweight (81kg) divisions and the top four from the heavyweight and super heavyweight classes qualify for the Beijing Olympics. —AP