Shanghai Archery World Cup: Parth Salunkhe, Deepika Kumari advance to semis

Indian recurve archers bounced back brilliantly in the individual elimination round, after missing out on team medals, as two Indian archers booked their place in the semi-final of the Shanghai World Cup in China on Friday.

The veteran female archer, Deepika Kumari, and the rising youngster, Parth Salunkhe, had an outstanding day, making it to the final four of their individual recurve categories.

The 21-year-old Parth, playing in his second World Cup stage, showed impressive shooting to knock down two Olympic champions en route to his maiden semi-final appearance at the World Cup.

After a dismal ranking round, where he finished in the 60th position and missed out on a place in the Indian men's team, Parth bounced back and began the elimination round with a shootoff win over the Tokyo Olympic champion Mete Gazoz of Turkiye.

He continued his form and reached the last four with a solid 6-2 win over three-time recurve team Olympic champion Kim Je-deok of South Korea in the quarterfinal.

In the women's category, Deepika Kumari was the only Indian archer to reach the quarterfinal, and she continued her momentum to extend her journey with a 6-2 win over Olympic medalist Li Jiaman of China.

Both Deepika and Parth will now take on the reigning Olympic champions in the semi-finals on Sunday, where Deepika will take on Lim Sihyeon of Korea while Parth is up against veteran Kim Woojin.

Kim, the five-time Olympic champion, has reached the semi-final with a solid 6-2 win against another Indian archer, Atanu Das. On the other hand, Tarundeep Rai and Dhiraj Boomadevara exited in the round of 64.

Meanwhile, the other three Indian female archers had an early exit, where Simranjeet Kaur, Anshika Kumari bowed out in the round of 64, while Ankita Bhakat had a pre-quarterfinal exit.

Compound mixed team into the bronze medal match

The top-seeded Indian compound mixed team of Abhishek Verma and Madhura Dhamangaonkar had made their place in the bronze medal match after losing a close semi-final (156-158) to Great Britain.

Earlier, the duo scored a perfect 160 against the USA in the quarterfinal to confirm their place in the last four in style. Abhishek and Madhura will now be taking on the Malaysian pair in the bronze medal match on Saturday.

On the other hand, the recurve mixed team of Dhiraj Boomadevara and Deepika Kumari had yet another disappointing end to the competition, losing with the scores of 1-5 in the round of 16 to Spain.