Archery WC: Compound mixed team sniff bronze medal, Salunkhe on song

Shanghai: The Indian compound mixed team entered the bronze medal match while Deepika Kumari and Parth Sushant Salunkhe made it to the women’s and men’s recurve individual semifinals of the World Cup Stage 2 here on Friday.

Madhura Dhamangaonkar and Abhishek Verma lost 156-158 to Ella Gibson and Ajay Scott of Great Britain in the compound mixed team semifinal.

The Indian archers lost the opening and third series -- 38-39 and 39-40 -- while they were tied 40-40 and 39-39 in the second and fourth series.

Dhamangaonkar and Abhishek Verma will face Malaysia -- who lost to Turkiye 156-157 -- in the bronze medal match on Saturday.

In the individual men’s recurve competition, Salunkhe made it to the semifinals after stunning Tokyo Olympics gold medallist and Paris Games bronze winner Mete Gazoz 6-5 in the shoot-off in the first round. He then overcame Aoshima Tetsuya of Japan with an identical margin in the Round of 32 before defeating Ryan Tyack of Australia 6-2.

In the quarterfinals, Salunkhe beat Kim Je Deok of South Korea 6-2. He will meet star South Korean and Paris Olympics gold medallist Kim Woojin in the semifinals on Sunday.

Woojin defeated Atanu Das in their quarterfinal.

In the women’s section, Deepika entered the semifinals. She began with a 6-4 win over Lucia Ibanez Romero of Spain and then defeated Diana Tursunbek of Kazakhstan 6-0 before prevailing over Victoria Sebastian of France 6-4

In the quarterfinals, Deepika beat Li Jiaman of China 6-2 to set up a semifinals clash against Lim Sihyeon of South Korea. Sihyeon had beaten another Indian Ankita Bhakat in the pre-quarterfinals.

In the recurve mixed team event, Deepika and Dhiraj Bommadevara lost 1-5 against Elia Canales and Andres Temino Mediel of Spain in the second round.