By Richard Immel
USA Wrestling

ZAGREB, Croatia – The 2025 Senior World Championships kicked off with a strong effort from the U.S. men’s freestyle team. 2023 World bronze medalist Zahid Valencia and reigning Pan American champion Jax Forrest moved into the semifinals, and PJ Duke remains in the hunt for a wrestle-back.  

No wrestler in the tournament impressed more than Valencia during the morning rounds at Arena Zagreb. He blitzed through three competitors at 86 kg—Mukul Dahiya of India, Fateh Benferdjallah of Algeria and Ivars Samusonok of Latvia—with first period, 10-0, technical falls.

Up next for Valencia is two-time World champion Kamran Ghasempour of Iran, who posted a pair of 10-0 wins before surviving a scare from two-time U20 World champion Ibragim Kadiev of UWW in the semifinals, 5-4.

The Valencia-Ghasempour semifinal is one of the most anticipated matchups of the event by international fans. Ghasempour has a deep history against elite U.S. competition. He last wrestled an American in the bronze medal match of the 2024 Worlds at 92 kg, falling 6-2 to Olympic champion and three-time world champion David Taylor, who is now Valencia’s coach. Additionally, Ghasempour owns two wins over Olympic bronze medalist and two-time World champion J’den Cox, 2-0 in the 2022 World finals and 3-3 in the 2021 World semis, plus a couple of losses to Olympic champion and three-time World champion Kyle Snyder up at 97 kg. It’ll be an interesting style matchup to see how Valencia’s length and attack-rate stacks up to Ghasempour’s power.

Not to be outdone is the 18-year-old phenom Forrest who more than met the challenge at 61 kg. After a sound, 10-0, technical fall against Sangboum Han of Korea to open the day, Forrest earned a pair of signature wins on his way to the semifinals. In round two, Forrest controlled Asian champion Takara Suda of Japan, 7-2, with sound edge wrestling being a distinguishing factor in the win. He followed it up with a near-technical fall over Taiyrbek Zhumashbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan, racking up 13 points on the 2023 World bronze medalist.

The competition ramps up another notch for Forrest in the semifinals. He will see 2020 Olympic champion and two-time World champion Zavur Uguev of UWW for a spot in the gold medal match. Uguev won both of his matches by technical fall.

Coming off a U20 World title last month in Samokov, Bulgaria, 18-year-old Duke held his own at 70 kg. He finished 1-1 on the day with his loss coming to defending World champion Nurkozha Kaipanov of Kazakhstan, 11-7. Duke held a four-point lead at the break but had trouble countering Kaipanov’s underhook offense in the second period, which proved costly. On the positive side, Kaipanov pushed through to the semifinals and is one win away from pulling Duke into repechage.

Heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson’s World Championships debut ended earlier than expected. He was unable to get his offense going in a 14-4 technical fall defeat at the hands of UWW athlete Abdulla Kurbanov in the first round at 125 kg. Kurbanov was ousted in the quarterfinals, preventing Hendrickson from the chance to wrestle back.

The tournament resumes at 6 p.m. local time with opening ceremonies, followed by the men’s freestyle group one (61-70-86-125 kg) semifinals at 7 p.m. Zagreb, Croatia, is in the GMT +2 time zone, which is six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time. 

The Senior World Championships will be live streamed on FloWrestling.com to the U.S. market. Brackets and updated results will be provided by United World Wrestling on UWW Arena.

USA Wrestling will provide regular updates on TheMat.com and its social media platforms throughout the event.