Antalya: B. Dhiraj and Ankita Bhakat remained in the medal hunt after reaching the men’s and women’s individual recurve events semifinals, respectively, in the Archery World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya, Turkey, on Friday.
Dhiraj beat Bangladesh’s Mohammed Sagor Islam 6-0, Indonesia’s Riau Salsabilla 7-1, Colombia’s Santiago Arango 6-4, and Germany’s Jonathon Vetter 7-3 to set up a semifinal clash with Korea’s Olympic and World Champion Kim Woojin.
Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai exited in the first round.
Ankita got past Iran’s Mobina Fallah 6-4, Ukraine’s Veronika Marchenko 7-1, China’s Li Jiaman 6-5 (shoot-off: 9-8) and Korea’s Jeon Hunyoung 6-4. Ankita will face China’s top-ranked Yang Xiaolei.
Deepika Kumari lost to Yang 6-5 (10-8) in the third round. Bhajan Kaur suffered defeat in the second round.
The third-ranked Indian recurve mixed team, comprising Bhajan and Dhiraj, received a bye and defeated Great Britain 5-1 and Brazil 5-1 before being beaten 5-3 by Korea in the semifinals. India will take on Mexico in the bronze medal match on Sunday.
In the compound mixed team event, the No. 1 Indian duo of V. Jyothi Surekha and Priyansh got a bye and beat Estonia 158-156 before going down to Italy 156-154. Agencies
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