Deepika storms into individual semis

Shanghai (China): Top Indian archer Deepika Kumari stormed into the semifinals of the Women's Individual Recurve section of the World Cup Stage 1, beating Jeon Hun-Young of South Korea 6-4 in the quarterfinals here on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Indian team of Abhishek Verma and Jyoti Surekha Vennam reached the final of the Compound Mixed Team event, beating Mexico's Andrea Becerra and Lot Maximo Mendez Ortiz 155-151 in the semifinals. In the final, the Indian team will take on Estonia for the gold medal.

In the Recurve Mixed Team event, the Indian combine of Ankita Bhakat and Dhiraj Bommadevara lost to the top-seeded Koreans Lim Sih-Yeon and Kim Woo-Jin 6-0 in the semifinal and will fight for the bronze medal against Mexico on Saturday.

Deepika, the former World No.1, returned strongly after losing the first set 27-28 to tie the second 27-27 before winning the next two, 29-28 and 29-27 and ending the match with another tie, 28-28 in the fifth set.

The 6-4 victory for Deepika, who won the gold medal in Women's Individual in the 2021 World Cup in Guatemala City, set up a semifinal clash with another Korean, Nam Suh-Yeon, who defeated Elisa Tartler of Germany 7-1 in the fourth quarterfinal. Among the other Indians in the Women's Recurve Individual, Komalika Bari went down 4-6 to Hal Ligan of China while Bhajan Kaur was blanked 0-6 by Chiu Yi-ching of Chinese Taipei.

In the other semifinal, Korea's Lim Shi-Yeon will take on China's Li Jiaman after both of them won quite comfortably.

In the Men's Individual recurve section, India's Dhiraj Bommadevara went down to Spain's Ken Sanchez Antoku 4-6 in the third round. He had defeated Adam Li of the Czech Republic in the first round and then went on to prevail over Wei Chun-Heng of Chinese Taipei 10-9 in a tie-breaking shot after he led 5-3 before his rival won the fifth set to level 5-5.

Compatriot Pravin Ramesh Jadhav was blanked 0-6 by Jack Williams of the United States in the first round.