Archery World Cup Stage 1: Dhiraj sets new national record, poor start for Deepika

India's ace recurve archer Dhiraj Bommadevara continued his last year's World Cup form and set up a new national record of 693 to finish third in the ranking round at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai, China on Wednesday.

Dhiraj bettered his previous best international score of 686 by seven points. He was closely followed by the most experienced Indian archer, Tarundeep Rai in the seventh position with his personal best of 684 points at an international competition.

Other recurve archers had a very tough outing in the ranking round, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav found himself in 25th position with 672 points despite making a massive comeback in the second half rising in the top 30.

The trio of Dhiraj, Tarundeep and Pravin accumulated a team total of 2049 which helped them to secure the second seed in the competition. They will now earn a bye in the first round of the knockout stage on Thursday.

Fourth Indian recurve archer, Mrinal Chauhan had another tough ranking round as he finished on 81th position, which ended his competition in Shanghai as he could not get past the cut of the top 64 players.

In the women's recurve event, Deepika Kumari's comeback to the World Cup circuit after two years wasn't remarkable as she finished the ranking round as third best Indian player on 30th position with a very low score of 656.

Ankita Bhakat led the Indian chart in the 15th position with a score of 664, while Bhajan Kaur (657) in the 29th position completed the line-up for the Indian women's recurve team, who finished in 6th position in the ranking round.

Ankita will also partner with Dhiraj in the mixed team as the fourth-seeded pair as they scored 1357 in the ranking round. They will also earn a bye in the first round of the competition.

Kamalika Bari, who was also making a comeback to the team after two years, marginally cleared the cut of 64 players to book a spot in the knockouts, finishing in the 57th position.

Earlier, both men's and women's compound teams made it to the gold medal matches, scheduled for April 27. The recurve men's and women's teams will be in action for the elimination rounds tomorrow in the morning session while the compound individual eliminations will take place in the afternoon session.