The top-ranked Indian women’s recurve team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari cruised into the final at the Guatamela City 2021 Hyundai Archery World Cup Stage 1 with victories over Guatemala in the quarterfinals and Spain in the semifinals by 6-0 margins in the span of 75 minutes on Friday.
The women’s squad was unaffected by the quarterfinal loss of the third-ranked men’s team of Atanu Das, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai, at the hands of No. 6 Spain. The Indian men rallied from 0-4 down to draw level 4-4 and force a shoot-off. However, they were unable to sustain the resurgence and lost 26-27 in the three-arrow shoot-off.
In the absence of details, it is hard to figure out from the scores which two archers shot 8 each in the shoot-off and negated the 10 by their team-mate. The Spanish team of Pablo Acha, Miguel Alvarino Garcia and Daniel Castro each shot a 9 to edge India out of the race for a spot in the semifinals.
Even in regulation play, India will be disappointed with the shooting in the first two sets when it scored 56 and 54 and conceded ground to the Spaniards. Overall, in losing 56-58, 54-56, 58-56, 58-55, 26-27, Indians were let down by the five eights out though they shot 13 10s. On the contrary, the Spanish trio shot 12 10s but was helped by the fact there were just three 8s in the match.
The women’s team faced no such stress in either of its matches on Friday. Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari first beat Guatemala City 58-35, 52-39, 57-44 and then trumped Spain 55-54, 56-49, 55-53 to breeze into Sunday’s final where they will meet second-ranked Mexico, a 6-2 winner over Germany in the other semifinal.
After the disappointment of Atanu Das and Ankita Bhakat losing the mixed team semifinal to Mexico via a shoot off (16-18) on Thursday and the men’s team’s early exit on Friday, the women’s team’s entry in the final was heart-warming news for fans of Indian archery. They will hope that Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari also come home with individual medals.
Image: Deepika Kumari (Courtesy: World Archery website)
