The Indian trio of Tarundeep Rai, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Pravin Jadhav set up a gold medal clash with Olympic champions Korea after storming into the men’s team recurve final of the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai on Thursday. It came a day after India were assured of at least two medals in the compound competition after both the men’s and women’s teams made the finals. The Indian recurve team, which qualified behind reigning world and Olympic champions South Korea, sailed past Italy 5-1 (55-54, 55-55, 56-55) in the last-four stage.
India will be up against the South Korea’s Tokyo Olympics gold medal-winning trio of Kim Woojin, Lee Woo Seok and Kim Je Deok in the final slated for Sunday.
The top-seeded Korean trio defeated their Chinese Taipei rivals Tan Chih-Chun, Lin Zih-Siang and Tai Yu-Hsuan in straight sets 6-0 (57-50, 58-56, 58-54).
In the compound event, former world youth champion Priyansh and reigning Asian Games gold-medallist Jyothi Surekha Vennam advanced to their respective individual semi-finals to also remain in the hunt for a medal.
Having got a first round bye in the season-opening tournament, the second-seeded men’s recurve team overcame a first set deficit to beat 15th seeded Indonesia 5-3 (55-56, 54-54, 55-51, 55-53) in their tricky opening clash.
They were back to their best against seventh-seeded Spain as they began by dropping just one point (59 out of 60) before cruising to a 5-1 (59-54, 56-55, 55-55) win to make the semifinals.
The Indian women’s team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur, which got the sixth rank in the qualifiers, managed a below-par show and lost a 3-1 lead to go down to Mexico in its opening clash.
Having got a bye in the first round, the Indian women’s team enjoyed a 3-1 lead in the second set. But their scores were below-par and they eventually lost 3-5 (50-50, 55-49, 51-54, 52-54).
Later, World Cup gold-medallist Jyothi, who is seeded second, downed teammate Avneet Kaur 143-142 in a tight finish to make the semis in teh compound competition.
Youngster Avneet gave her experienced teammate a tough fight when she bounced back from being two points behind to level 86-all at the end of third end.
She then produced two 10s including one X in the central ring to snatch a 115-114 lead, but only to falter in the final, hitting the 8-ring.
Jyothi sealed it by two X and a nine. Jyothi will face Meeri-Martia Paas of Estonia in the semifinal on Saturday.
There was heartbreak for India’s teenaged reigning world champion Adii Swami who lost out to top-seeded Andrea Becerra of Mexico 142-144 in the quarterfinals.
Priyansh, who is seeded 14th, downed Batuhan Akcaoglu of Turkey in a thrilling shoot-off to set up a last-four clash against Nick Kappers of the USA.
Both the archers were locked 145-145 and in the tiebreaker. the 21-year-old Indian held his nerves to produce two 10s to edge out the Akcaoglu who managed 10 and 9.
Kappers eliminated the other Indian in the fray, Prathamesh Fuge 149-147 in his quarterfinal.
The seasoned Abhishek Verma made a second round exit, going down to Jean Philippe Boulch of France.
The fourth Indian in fray, Rajat Chauhan’s campaign was ended by Priyansh in the second round.
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