Indian Archers Stun Koreans

Kolkata, June 10: The mixed pair of Jayanta Talukdar and Deepika Kumari have brought the smile back on the face of a struggling Indian team after they stunned heavyweights Korea en route to the final of the World Cup (Stage II) archery competitions in Antalya, Turkey.

The Indian duo will take on the Chinese pair of Xiaoxiang Dai and Yuting Fang in the summit clash on Sunday, according to information received here.

In yesterday's results, the Talukdar-Deepika pair did not give their fancied Korean opponents of Bo Bae Ki and Woojin Kim any chance with a 151-149 win.

The Indian pair first defeated Germany (Florian Floto and Elen Richter) 146-145 and Italy (Mauro Nespoli and Natali Valeeva) 149-147 in the quarterfinals.

In today's result, the Indian women's recurve team set up a bronze medal play-off against Ukraine after narrowly losing to the US.

The women's trio of Laishram Bombayla Devi, Deepika Kumari and Chekrovolu Swuro lost the semifinals in tie-breaker, according to information received here.

The world No. 1 men's team comprising Tarundeep Rai, Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee disappointed, losing to Japan in the first round after it went to tie-breaker.

The Indians' campaign in the individual competition too came to an end with the remaining three, Thupuvoyi Swuro, Bombayla and Deepika losing in the round of 32 yesterday.

The Indian men's team, seeded ninth, dished out a woeful show to tie 212-212 against Japan. In the three-arrow tie-breaker, India lost 27-29.

Japan meanwhile beat Korea and France to storm into the summit clash.

The women's team however was unlucky, missing out on a final berth.

They beat Turkey in the first round 208-207 and then pipped Russia 209-208 before tying 212-212 against the US.

In the tie-breaker, India went down 24-28.

In the men's elimination round, Thupuvoyi went down to ultimate finalist and fourth seed Brady Ellison of the US 6-2.

The Indian team was banking on Commonwealth Games twin gold medallist Deepika who was ranked fourth behind the three Koreans in the qualification round.

But the Ranchi youngster failed to go past 29th ranked Lisa Unruh of Germany, going down 4-6.

Bombayla, ranked 11th, should have had no problem in defeating 43rd ranked Bishindee Urantungalag of Mongolia, but the latter had other ideas as she emerged winner with a 7-1 score. PTI