T&T box­er Don­nell Phillips pro­duced a brave per­for­mance on Wednes­day at the AI­BA World Box­ing Cham­pi­onships in Bel­grade, Ser­bia but was beat­en on points in a 60kg con­test 5-0 by Tun­ga Oyum­baatar of Mon­go­lia.

The re­sult brought to two, the num­ber of de­feats for T&T in the past two days at the cham­pi­onships af­ter T&T's Olympic fight­er Aaron Prince went down to So­ma Mester of Hun­gary in a mid­dleweight con­test bout on Tues­day.

Phillips, sent to the cham­pi­onship for ex­pe­ri­ence, de­scribed the bout as a com­pet­i­tive one: "It was my first fight in a lit­tle bit, so I was get­ting back in there af­ter my longest lay-off ba­si­cal­ly, plus it was my first in­ter­na­tion­al bout, so it was a good ex­pe­ri­ence for me.

"When I was com­ing for­ward, the de­fence was not where it was sup­posed to be, so I was get­ting hit com­ing for­ward. I should have gone back a few times and cho­sen bet­ter spots to strike."

Be­ing one of three young box­ers on the T&T team be­ing pre­pared for the fu­ture, Phillips be­lieves that with more train­ing, he would be able to do a lot more.

Ac­cord­ing to the 21-year-old box­er: "As my first in­ter­na­tion­al fight, I was not sure what to ex­pect. I was not sure about the lev­el and how I would pan out with it, but with a lit­tle more train­ing I would def­i­nite­ly hold my own, do more and even medal."

Coach Reynold Cox, de­spite the de­feat, was in high praise for his young box­er, say­ing: " It wasn't bad for his first out­ing, he showed that he was very com­pet­i­tive and that was very im­por­tant for us at this stage. He is 21 years old and he showed the vigour to go out there and stay in the fight and be com­pet­i­tive.

"I think he could have done more de­fen­sive­ly, tac­ti­cal­ly, he could have shown bet­ter move­ment. Over­all, I am hap­py with the com­pet­i­tive­ness he showed."

To­day, Olympian Nigel Paul will step in­to ac­tion as he takes on Nel­son Hys­sa of Al­ba­nia in the Su­per-Heavy­weight di­vi­sion. Paul, who earned a qual­i­fy­ing berth at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil could not seal a place at the Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan ear­li­er this year.

Cox told Guardian Me­dia Sports, the bulky su­per heavy­weight fight­er will be hop­ing to get past his op­po­nent on Thurs­day and progress to the oth­er round.

Apart from Paul, An­tho­ny Joseph who earned a walk-over vic­to­ry on Niv­en Chem­ben of Mau­ri­tius on Sun­day, will re­turn to the ring on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.