World Cup Stage-3: Dhiraj, Bhakat reach semifinals in individual events
B. Dhiraj and Ankita Bhakat remained in the medal hunt after reaching the men’s and women’s individual recurve events semifinals, respectively, in the Archery World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya, Turkey, on Friday.
Dhiraj beat Bangladesh’s Mohammed Sagor Islam 6-0, Indonesia’s Riau Salsabilla 7-1, Colombia’s Santiago Arango 6-4, and Germany’s Jonathon Vetter 7-3 to set up a semifinal clash with Korea’s Olympic and World Champion Kim Woojin.
Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai exited in the first round.
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Ankita got past Iran’s Mobina Fallah 6-4, Ukraine’s Veronika Marchenko 7-1, China’s Li Jiaman 6-5 (shoot-off: 9-8) and Korea’s Jeon Hunyoung 6-4. Ankita will face China’s top-ranked Yang Xiaolei.
Deepika Kumari lost to Yang 6-5 (10-8) in the third round. Bhajan Kaur suffered defeat in the second round.
The third-ranked Indian recurve mixed team, comprising Bhajan and Dhiraj, received a bye and defeated Great Britain 5-1 and Brazil 5-1 before being beaten 5-3 by Korea in the semifinals. India will take on Mexico in the bronze medal match on Sunday.
In the compound mixed team event, the No. 1 Indian duo of V. Jyothi Surekha and Priyansh got a bye and beat Estonia 158-156 before going down to Italy 156-154.