A day after her World record-equalling feat, Deepika Kumari made a shock quarter-final exit from the individual events of the Archery World Cup, first stage at the Yuanshen Stadium, in Shanghai, on Thursday.
On a forgettable day for Indians top seed Deepika, who got a bye into round three following her World record score of 686 in the qualification round, started off well with two easy victories but stumbled against Maja Jager 4-6. It was an abrupt end to her glorious run in the women's recurve individual.
Besides Deepika, Laxmirani Majhi and Jayanta Talukdar too made quarter-final exits in their respective events, leaving the Indian challenge for medal contention in individual events over.
The Indians will now bank on the team events and mixed pair competition for medals.
Having started off with an easy 6-0 victory over Veronika Haidn Tschalova of Germany, Deepika got past Cui Yuanyuan of China 7-1 but found the going tough against the Danish girl.
Locked 2-2, Jager won the third and fourth ends to take a 6-2 lead. Deepika recovered in the fourth end but it was too late by then.
Deepika's teammate Laxmirani Majhi was also in the fray in the quarters but lost to Tan Ya-Ting of Taipei 2-6, while Rimil Buriuly suffered a first round exit, losing to Kim Chaeyun 1-7 of Korea.
Talukdar's fine run was halted in the quarters when he went down to fifth seed Wei Chun-Heng of Taipei 4-6.
The 13th seed earlier was the only Indian to survive the pre-quarters when he blanked fourth seed Mege Gazoz of China 6-0, while Atanu Das, who qualified as 12th seed, lost to Chun-Heng 2-6.
Asian Games gold-medallist Abhishek Verma put up a valiant fight against world record holder and top seed Mike Schloesser only to go down to the Dutchman by a solitary point (149-148).
Having bettered his own World record, Schloesser, nicknamed 'Mr Perfect', was locked 89-89 after three ends before taking a slender one-point lead with a perfect 30 in the fourth.
Leading 119-118 after the penultimate round, the Dutchman held his nerve for another perfect round to clinch the issue.
Verma also shot a 30 but it was not enough.
Image: Deepika Kumari
Photograph: Paul Gilham/Getty Images
