Asia Cup Archery: Indian archers secure spot in all ten finals

Indian archers carried their momentum of the team events in the individual elimination rounds and secured at least one spot in each of the ten finals with three all-Indian finals at the Asia Cup in Baghdad, Iraq on Friday.

The first All-Indian final will be in the men's recurve category where experienced archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Tarundeep Rai will go head-on against each other on Sunday.

Dhiraj reached the final after taking a 7-1 win over Uzbekistan's Amirkhan Sadikov, who knocked out another Indian, Parth Salunkhe in a close 6-5 match that went into shoot-off at the quarterfinals.

On the other hand, Tarundeep attained a 6-2 win over Bangladesh's Md Hakim Ahmed Rubel, who upset second-seeded and Olympian Pravin Ramesh Jadhav with a 6-4 win in the quarterfinals.

Deepika Kumari is into the final on the comeback

Deepika Kumari reached the final of women's recurve in her first international tournament after a comeback to the team. She takes a 7-1 win over Nilufar Hamroeva of Uzbekistan in the semis.

Deepika will face another young Indian archer Simranjeet Kaur in the final on Sunday. Simranjeet reached the final after winning a close 6-5 shoot-off win in the semis against Ziyodakhon Abdusattorova.

Nilufar reached the semis after knocking out India no.1, Bhajan Kaur with a comfortable 6-2 victory in the quarterfinals while Ziyadakhon knocked out Ankita Bhakat in a 6-5 shootoff victory. 

Parneet Upsets World champion Aditi

Parneet Kaur continued her good form of the last year and upset (148-147) her teammate, world champion Aditi Gopichand Swami in the semis of the women's compound to book a place in the final.

She will play against a tough Iranian archer Fatemeh Hemmati in the final, who knocked out (145-143) another Indian Priya Gujar in the semis.

Priya will take on Aditi Swami for the Bronze medal tomorrow. She will try to take the win in her second all-Indian clash of the tournament after beating Sakshi Chaudhary in the quarterfinals. 

In the men's compound, there is an all-Indian clash in the final between Prathmesh Jawkar and Kushal Dalal. Prathmesh puts up an excellent performance in the semis to outscore his Kazakh opponent, Akbarali Karabayev with a perfect 150 in contrast to his 147.

On the other hand, Kushal took a 149-146 win to upset the top-seeded Iranian, Armin Pakzad to book a spot in the final.

The other two players, Piyush Joshi, and Priyansh were knocked out in the quarterfinals after losing their respective matches to Akbarali and Kushal respectively.