Archery World cup: Deepika Kumari upsets Korean archer to reach semis

Deepika Kumari, the star Indian recurve archer, made an outstanding comeback to the World Cup circuit after two years as she confirmed her spot in the semifinals of the Shanghai Archery World Cup in China on Friday.

She is the lone Indian recurve archer to reach the semis of an individual event at this world cup. She secured two significant upsets on her route to the semifinals. She had a poor showing in the ranking round, finishing as the 30th seed.

However, she bounced back well in the elimination round where, firstly, she knocked out third-seeded Katharina Bauer of Germany (7-3) in the second round and then upset the 6th-seeded Jeon Hunyoung of South Korea (6-4) in the quarters.

Deepika has multiple World Cup titles on the World Cup circuit and will be eager to add one more to her tally, especially in an Olympic year. She will face another South Korean archer, Nam Suhyeon, in the semis on April 28th.

Meanwhile, the other three female recurve archers, Kamalika Bari, Bhajan Kaur, and Ankita Bhakat, had a disappointing World Cup as they were eliminated early in the competition, losing their respective round of 64 matches.

In men's recurve, Tarundeep Rai had an impressive run in the knockout rounds but fell short in the quarterfinals, losing 3-7 to Spain's Andres Temino. Meanwhile, third-seeded Dhiraj Boomadvera exited in the round of 16 to another Spanish archer, Ken Antoku Sanchez.

Earlier, both the Indian recurve and compound mixed teams advanced to the medal matches after their elimination round matches. The recurve pairing of Dhiraj and Ankita will compete for the bronze medal against Mexico, while the compound pairing of Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha will face Estonia in the final of the compound mixed team event tomorrow.