Asian Games 2014: Indian recurve archers disappoint, women's team still in fray

Incheon: The fancied Indian recurve archers on Friday cut a sorry figure in the individual events but the country is still in with a chance of bagging a bronze medal in the women's team category in the 17th Asian Games, here.

The women recurve team comprising Deepika Kumari, L Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi is still in fray for a medal as they could make it to the semifinals.

Although they were thrashed 0-6 by favourites South Korea in the last four stage, the Indians now will be up against Japan in the bronze medal play-off match on Sunday.

The Indian trio, who blanked Uzbekistan 6-0 before recording a close 5-4 win over Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals earlier in the day, were proved to be no match to the Koreans, who won 6-0 (56-50 58-54 56-54) to book their final berth comfortably.

Unlike their female counterparts, it was curtains for the men's recurve team in the elimination round as they suffered a close 3-5 defeat against Hong Kong.

The India men's team comprising Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Jayanta Talukdar lost the deciding fourth set by a narrow margin of one point (52-53) to crash out of the event.

After losing the first set 53-54 to Chun Man Chui, Kar Wai Calvin Lee and Hing Kin Ma, the Indians won the second 54-42, while the third ended in a tie 54-54.

In the fourth, the 10 scored by Hong Kong archers on the first arrow proved decisive as they got the better of India by just one point in the end.

Meanwhile, Indian's campaign got over in the individual recurve events with Atanu, Deepika, Laxmirani and Jayanta all failing to make it to the medal rounds. While Atanu and Laxmirani managed to enter the quarterfinals, it was curtains for country's best medal bets -- Deepika and Jayanta -- in the elimination rounds.

Atanu started brightly as he defeated Myo Aung Nay of Myanmar 6-0, Hsin Fu Chen of Chinese Taipei 6-2 in his first two elimination rounds to book a place in the quarterfinals of the men's individual recurve event.

But it was always a tall task for Atanu in the quarters as he was up against a mighty Jinhyek Oh of Korea who sailed past the Indian with 6-0, pocketing three sets comfortably in succession.

The script was the same for Laxmirani who too bowed out in the quarterfinals after losing to Korea's Hyejin Chang 2-6. She had earlier defeated Asel Sharbekova of Kyrgyzstan 6-0 and Shu Chi Yuan of Chinese Taipei 6-4 in the elimination rounds.

Deepika failed to qualify for the quarterfinals after losing to 0-6 to Diananda Choirunisa in her second elimination round. She had earlier defeated Munira Nurmanova of Uzbekistan 6-0 in the first elimination round.

The story for Jayanta Talukdar was even more worse as he crashed out in the first elimination round itself, losing 1-7 to Khairul Anuar Bin Mohamad of Malaysia.