Grents, who won European Games gold in 2023, says Saturday's fight, at the Tondiraba Ice Hall against Italy's Ludovica Ciarpaglini, is the most important of her life — win it and she can challenge for a world title.

One inspiration is the number of women and girls training nowadays, compared with when she started over a decade ago.

"When I started out, there were very few girls doing boxing. Now you see that sometimes there are even more girls than boys in the gym, and you see they even have more discipline about coming to training every day than the boys," she told "Terevisioon," adding the sport has grown hugely in Estonia.

Grents, fights under the name Asteroid, took up kickboxing 12 years ago looking for a new hobby. She has also trained in classical boxing and kickboxing, but her main style is Muay Thai.

"I have the ability to defend myself and I think that makes you very confident. It has become such a part of my life that I can't imagine not going to training today."

She said the sport clears her head and is a great workout. "During a boxing session you can't think about anything, you have to be in the moment." She contrasted that with gym training, where people tend to scroll on their phones between sets: in kickboxing you get three minutes of work and a minute's rest, with no time to think about anything except getting your breath back.

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