The Indian men’s and women’s compound archery teams assured the country of a medal by making it to the finals of the season-opening Archery World Cup. With this, Dheeraj Bommadevara broke the national record and secured third place in the men’s recurve qualification round.
Men’s team faces Netherlands in the final
The fourth-seeded men’s team comprising of experienced Abhishek Verma, budding archer Prathamesh Bhalchandra Phuge and reigning Under-21 world champion Priyansh fended off a strong challenge from Korea in the semi-finals after defeating Philippines and Denmark. The Indian men’s team will face a challenge from the Netherlands in the final to be played on Saturday. The Indian men’s team created a big upset by defeating Korea 235-233 in a close match. After the first two rounds of this match, both the teams were tied, but India defeated Korea with a score of 59.
Women’s team will face Italy
In the women’s category, world champion India won the ticket to the final by defeating Turkey and Estonia. Top seed India will face the challenge of Italy in the final. The trio of reigning Under-18 and senior champion Aditi Swamy, Asian Games gold medalist Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Preneet Kaur lost just 10 points in their first two matches.
Bommadevara broke the national record
Bommadevara finished third in the qualification with a score of 693. He improved the national record of 689 set by Tarundeep Rai. In the preliminary round, he will face Adam Lee of Czech Republic. Tarundeep was the second best Indian finishing seventh with a score of 684. Praveen Jadhav stood 25th with a score of 672. The Indian men’s team is second in qualification after Korea. The Indian team has got a bye in the second round.
In the women’s category, Ankita Bhakta qualified at 25th position with a score of 664. She was followed by Kaur Bhajan and former world number one Deepika Kumari, who scored 657 and 656 respectively. Komalika Bari finished 57th in the qualification table after scoring 636 points. The Indian team is at sixth position overall with 1977 points. The top 64 archers in the recurve singles category make it to the main competition.