Indian women had mixed fortunes in the individual archery competition, with Reena Kumari advancing to the pre-quarter-finals and Sumangala Sharma biting the dust at the Olympic Games in Athens on Tuesday.
The day started well for India in the archery arena, as Reena prevailed over Bhutan's Tshering Chhoden in a nerve-wracking encounter which rolled into the shoot-off, before Sumangala went down 153-157 to Jean Kirstin Lewis in second round battles.
Reena, who seems to be improving with every outing since her poor 43rd place finish in the ranking competition, won the shoot out 7-4 against the Bhutanese lass after the two were tied 134-134 in the regulation round.
The 20-year-old Reena scored a poor 19 points in her opening series to concede a huge 10-point lead to Chhoden, playing her second Olympics, before raising her game by hitting her arrows with a greater deal of consistency.
Another indicator of Reena's steady showing was the fact that even though she could not manage even a single 10-pointer, she made it through.
In contrast, Chhoden, who had earlier achieved the distinction of being the first woman archer to move to the knock-out round from the Himalayan kingdom, boasted of two 10-pointers.
The Indian was in her best form in the fourth and sixth series where she picked 25 and 26 points respectively while the 24-year-old Bhutanese paid dearly for a poor third series where she could manage just 16 points.
Reena, who had upset Kristine Esebua of Georgia in the first knock-out round on Sunday, would now be up against the formidable Chi Yuan Shu of Chinese Taipei, who had finished sixth in the ranking round. Shu got the better of Poland's Malgorzata Sobieraj 158-149 in another first round match during the day.
Sumangala, the youngest member of the Indian team, hit a 10-pointer in the fifth series, but the South African girl won the day riding on her strong showing in the third, fourth and last series, when she culled 29, 28 and 29 points respectively.
Lewis has proved to be the nemesis for the Indians in the tournament so far, as she had earlier ousted the country's top ranked archer Dola Banerjee in the opening round on Sunday.
Lewis, who culled seven 10-pointers, including two bull's eye hits, will now clash with Ying He for a place in the last eight.
