Competition began at the Štark Arena in Serbia's capital city with the freestyle under-61-kilogram, under-70kg, under-86kg, and under-125kg tournaments.

Double Pan American Championships gold medallist Vito Arujau from the US surged into the under-61kg final following four comprehensive victories.

He first crushed Kazakhstan's Ossimzhan Dastanbek 10-0 before inflicting the same scoreline on Bulgarian Stilyan Illiev.

Kodai Ogawa of Japan was the first to put a point on him but fell to an 8-2 defeat nonetheless.

Taiyrbek Zhumashbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan stood in the way of a gold medal-match place for Arujau but was quickly brushed aside, losing 12-2 to the 24-year-old.

Arujau faces a tough match in the final against neutral athlete Abasgadzhi Magomedov.

Magomedov won the discipline's gold at the 2021 World Championships in Oslo competing under the Russian Wrestling Federation logo.

He also surged through the preliminary rounds, conceding just four points which all came in the quarter-final clash against Velntyn Bliasetskyi of Ukraine.

Last year's runner-up Zain Retherford was the next strong American athlete.

He clinched his place in the under-70kg decider following a 7-0 win against Arman Andreasyan of Armenia.

Silver medallist from 2021 Amir Mohammad Yazdani of Iran awaits after he beat Bulgarian Ramazan Ramazanov in the semi-final.

Another 7-0 triumph was in store for Retherford's compatriot and Tokyo 2020 champion David Taylor in the under-86kg semi-final.

A rematch of the Olympic final is set to take place as Iran's Hassan Yazdani, a Rio 2016 gold medallist, also progressed from the last four with a crushing 10-0 win over Uzbekistan's Javrail Shapiev.

The under-125kg was the only tournament not to feature an American in the final.

Iranian Olympic bronze medallist and 2021 world champion Amir Hossein Zare and Tokyo 2020 runner-up Geno Petriashvili advanced from the semi-finals.

Tomorrow's action is set to see four more weight categories begin before the finals of today's tournaments take place.