Shanghai: The Indian compound archers continued their strong run at the Archery World Cup Stage 2 with Rishabh Yadav and Madhura Dhamangaonkar entering the individual semifinals even as the recurve teams crashed out of the medal contention here on Thursday.
Yadav emerged as one of the standout performers of the day, reaching the men’s compound semifinals after a tense quarterfinal shoot-off win over Denmark’s Mathias Fullerton.
Locked at 147-147, the fourth-seeded Yadav held his nerve to edge the shoot-off 10*-10, by hitting his arrow closer to the centre. He will now face world No. 1 Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands for a place in the final.
In the women’s compound section, third-seeded Madhura continued her impressive comeback by upsetting multiple World Cup gold medallist and teammate Jyothi Surekha Vennam 142-141 in the quarterfinals.
Competing in only her second World Cup since 2022, Madhura will take on Turkey’s Hazal Burun in the semifinal, needing one more win to confirm her maiden World Cup medal. However, it was the end of the road for veterans Abhishek Verma and Uday Kamboj, both of whom exited in the second round of the men’s individual compound competition.
In the team event, the seventh-seeded Indian men’s recurve trio of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai lost the bronze medal match 3-5 to the USA earlier in the day.
In the women’s section, the team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat, and Anshika Kumari, who looked the most promising with a third-place qualification finish, made a shock exit in the pre-quarterfinals, losing to 14th-seeded Mexico 4-5 (26-27) in the shoot-off. While India’s recurve teams continue to struggle in pressure moments, their compound counterparts have been far more consistent.
On Wednesday, the compound teams assured the country of two medals.