Deepika crashes out of archery World Cup

Deepika Kumari crashed out of the quarter-finals of the women's individual recurve event on a disappointing day for Indians at the Archery World Cup first stage at the Yuanshen Stadium here on Thursday.

Deepika got a bye into the third round after equalling the world record of 686 in the qualification round, but was unable to make the most of the opportunity. The top seed got off to a good start, outclassing Veronika Haidn Tschalova of Germany 6-0 before taking a commanding 7-1 win over Cui Yuanyuan of China.

But she lost 4-6 to Maja Jager of Denmark to crash out of the event. The early stages saw keen competition with Deepika and Maja locked at 2-2. But Maja took a decisive 6-2 lead when she won the third and fourth ends and held on to her advantage despite a strong late fightback by Deepika.

The other Indian archers also had a poor day in office and none of them remain in medal contention in the individual events.

Laxmirani Majhi lost 2-6 to Tan Ya-Ting of Taipei in the quarter-finals of the women's individual recurve, while Rimil Buriuly went down 1-7 to Kim Chaeyun of South Korea in the first round of the same event.

In the men's individual recurve category, Jayanta Talukdar lost 4-6 to fifth seed Wei Chun-Heng of Taipei. The 13th seeded Indian had thrashed fourth seed Mege Gazoz of China 0-6 in the pre-quarterfinals.

Reigning Asian Games champion Abhishek Verma produced a spirited fight against world record holder Mike Schloesser of Netherlands before going down by a solitary point. The top seeded Schloesser bettered his own world record on his way to a narrow 149-148 win over his Indian opponent.

The duo were locked at 89-89 after three ends before the Dutchman took a one-point lead with a perfect 30 in the fourth. Schloesser shot another 30 in the final round to make sure of victory. Verma also notched up a perfect score in the final round, but it did not prove to be enough.

Atanu Das, the other Indian in the fray, had lost 2-6 to Chun-Heng in the pre-quarterfinals.

--IANS

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