The Indian trio of Tarundeep Rai, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Pravin Jadhav set up a gold medal clash with Olympic champions Korea after storming into the men's team recurve final of the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai, China on Thursday. (More Sports News)
It came a day after India were assured of at least two medals in the compound compe♑tition after both the men's and women's teams made the finals.
The Indian r💮ecurve team, which qualified behind reigning world and Olympic champions South Korea, sailed past Italy 5-1 (55-54, 55-55, 56-55) in the last-fou😼r stage.
India will be up against South Korea's Tokyo Olympics gold medal-winning trio of Kim Woojin, Lee Woo Seok and Kim Je ♊Deok in the final slated for Sunday.
The top-seeded Korean trio defeated their Chinese Taipei rival🐟s Tan Chih-Chun, Lin Zih-Siang and Tai Yu-Hsuan in straight s♎ets 6-0 (57-50, 58-56, 58-54).
In the compound event, former world youth champion Priyansh and reigning Asian Games gold-medallist Jyothi Surekha Vennam advanced to their respective individual semi-finals to also re𒁃main in the hunt for a medal.
Having got a first-round bye in the season-opening tournament, the second-seeded men's recurve team ov🍎ercame a first-set deficit to beat 15th-seeded Indonesia 5-3 (55-56, 54🍰-54, 55-51, 55-53) in their tricky opening clash.
They were back t𝄹o their best against seventh-seeded Spain as they began by ꧙dropping just one point (59 out of 60) before cruising to a 5-1 (59-54, 56-55, 55-55) win to make the semifinals.
The Indian women's team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur🔯, which got the sixth rank in the qualifiers, managed a below-par show and lost a 3-1 lead to go down to Mexico in its opening clash.
Having got a bye in the first round, the Indian women's team enjoyed a 3-1ꦰ lead in the second set. But their scores were below-par and they eventually lost 3-5 (50-50, 55-49, 5ꦯ1-54, 52-54).
Later, World Cup gold-medallist Jyothi, who is seeded second, down♏ed teammate Avneet Kaur 143-142 in a ti𒊎ght finish to make the semis in the compound competition.
Youngster Avneet gave her experienced teammate a tough fight when she bounced back from being two points behind to l🍷evel 86-all at the end of the third end.
She then produced two 10s including one Xﷺ in t🌳he central ring to snatch a 115-114 lead, but only to falter in the final, hitting the 8-ring.
Jyothi sealed it🤡 by two X and a nine. Jyothi will face Meeri-Martia Paas of Estonia in the semifinal on Saturday.
There was heartbreak for India's teenage reigning world champion Adii Swami who lost out to top-seeded Andrea Becerra of Me🥀xico 142-144 in the quarterfinals.
Priyansh, who is seeded 14th, downed Batuhan Akcaoglu of Turkey in a thrilling shoot-off to set up a last-four clash agaꦉinst Nick Kappers of the USA.
Both the archers were locked 145-145 and in the tiebreaker. the 21-year-old Indian held his nerves to p🐲roduce two 10s to edge out the Akcaoglu who managed 10 and 9.
Kappers e꧒liminated the other Indiꦯan in the fray, Prathamesh Fuge 149-147 in his quarterfinal.
The seasoned Abhishek Verma made a second-round exit, going down t🤪o Jean Philippe Boulch of France.
The fourth🔯💟 Indian in the fray, Rajat Chauhan's campaign was ended by Priyansh in the second round.
