Shanghai

The Indian men's and women's compound archery teams stormed into the finals of the World Cup Stage 2 with commanding wins here on Wednesday, assuring the country of two medals from the prestigious event.

While the compound archers continued to shine, it was a grim picture in the Olympic discipline recurve section, where the Indians endured a disappointing day with only Dhiraj Bommadevara finishing in the top-10, while the rest struggled with ordinary qualifying scores.

The No. 1-ranked men's team of Ojas Deotale, Abhishek Verma and Rishabh Yadav easily defeated Great Britain 239-232 in the quarterfinal before overcoming a strong challenge from Denmark 232-231 in the semifinal.

In the women's compound section, the top ranked Indian team comprising Madhura Dhamangaonkar, Chikitha Taniparthi and Jyothi Surekha Vennam overcame Kazakhstan in the quarterfinal, before defeating Great Britain in the last-four stage to set up a title clash with Mexico.

Both the gold-medal matches against Mexico will take place on Saturday.

In the men's quarterfinal against Great Britain, India lost the opening series 59-60 before the team pulled things back in the second with a scoreline of 60-58, thus taking the aggregate score after two sets to 119-118.

In the third series, the Indian trio was even more assertive, winning 60-57. They won by the same margin in the fourth set as well to win by seven points against the Great Britain trio of Ajay Scott, Adam Carpenter and Luke Davis.

In the semifinal, India started off on the wrong foot as they lost the opening series 57-60 before gaining momentum to level the scores at 58-58 in the second.

With the Danes leading by three points at 118-115 going into the third set, things looked uphill for India.

But a remarkable turnaround happened as the Indian trio slammed all their arrows in the bulls eye even as Danish archers Mathias Fullerton, Martin Damsbo and Nicklas Bredal Bryld faltered with three 9s as India levelled the scores at 175-175.

The low-scoring decisive fourth series saw India miraculously take a one point lead at 57-56 to seal a berth in the final.

In the women's compound section, India, who had received a bye in the opening round, defeated eighth-ranked Kazakhstan 232-229, before overcoming fourth ranked Great Britain 232-230 to secure a title clash against Mexico, ranked second in the world.

Last month in Auburndale (USA), the Indian compound mixed team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Rishabh Yadav had clinched the gold medal at the World Cup Stage 1, defeating their Chinese Taipei opponents Huang I-Jou and Chen Chieh-Lun.

Later in the day in the recurve section, Army youngster Dhiraj, who bagged a bronze in the first World Cup, remained the lone bright spot in the men's recurve qualification round, finishing ninth with 677 points. He was the only Indian inside the top 10.

Veteran Tarundeep Rai, a silver medallist at the 2010 Asian Games and who's still active at 41 years, slipped to 28th place with a modest score of 666.

Multiple Olympian Atanu Das fared even worse, ending up 57th with 652 points.

In the men's team event, India managed a seventh seeding.

On the women’s side, Deepika Kumari finished 12th with 655, while Ankita Bhakat was 17th (652) and Anshika Kumari 29th (642), helping the team secure a third seeding.

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Dhiraj and Deepika also combined in the recurve mixed team event, where they earned an eighth seeding.