ISSF World Cup: Sarabjot-Divya win 10m mixed pistol gold

The Indian pair of Sarabjot Singh and Divya TS, on Thursday, bagged the gold medal in the Mixed 10m Air Pistol team event at the ongoing 2023 ISSF Shooting World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan.

They defeated the Serbia's Zorana Arunovic and Mikec Damir 16-14 in a hard-fought final.

The Indians started the final in a dominating fashion, but soon found themselves trailing 6-10 after a few loose shots. A quick chat with coach Samaresh Jung in a time-out then seemed to have helped Divya and Singh as they bounced back to bag India's first gold medal of the competition.

Divya TS, was quite evidently, the best out of the four shooters in the final and had to do most of the heavy lifting for India as Sarabjot seemed to be struggling to find his rhythm. The Karnataka girl had a total of ten shot above 10 in the fifteen-series final even as Singh dipped below the ten-point mark a massive eight times.

Earlier in the qualification round, Divya had emerged as the joint-best woman shooter with a score of 288 while Sarabjot shot an even impressive 293 to propel India into the gold medal match with a score of 581. Arunovic (287) and Damir (294) too shot 581 in the qualification round, but the Indians were ranked higher, thanks to more Xs.

Having won their first-ever medal together as a pair, Divya said: "We feel we are a strong team. I did not really think about what the Serbians were shooting, I was focused on myself."

The other Indian pair in contention in Mixed 10m Air Pistol - Esha Singh and Varun Tomar, failed to advance after finishing sixth in the qualification round with a score of 578.

Rifle shooters disappoint

On the other hand, the Indian shooters failed to impress in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event on Thursday.

While the pair of the young Tilottama Sen and Hriday Hazarika finished 17th in the qualification round with a score of 627.6, the pair of reigning 10m air rifle individual world champion Rudrankksh Patil and Ramita finished an even disappointing 28th with a score of 626.3.

Patil, in particular, had a forgettable outing shooting a mere 312.5 individually in the qualification round.