Dhiraj Bommadevara won two medals in Antalya, Turkey on Sunday as he first combined with Bhajan Kaur to produced a come-from-behind victory to win the bronze medal in the recurve mixed team and then won a bronze in the men’s individual recurve bronze event at the Archery World Cup Stage 3.
The Indian duo, who had lost to eventual silver medallist South Korea in the semi-final, beat the Mexican team of Alejandra Valencia and Matias Grande 5-3 in the bronze medal match.
It was a nervy start for Bommadevara and Kaur who shot three 9s and one 8 in the first set to concede the points to Mexico. However, they came back strongly in the second set to shoot a perfect score of 40 (all four arrows scoring 10) and levelled the match at 2-all.
The third set saw both Bommadevara and Kaur begin with 9s, but then shot 10s (X) to take the lead at 4-2. The final set went down to the wire as both Kaur and Grande were accurate with their arrows. Valencia shot a 10 and 8 and Bommadevara held his nerve to close out the match with a 9 and finish the match with 5-3, sharing the points of the final set.
Later in the day, 45th ranked Ankita Bhakat was defeated 2-6 by eventual gold medalist and top-seed Yang Xiaolei of China in the women’s individual recurve semi-final.
In the bronze medal match, Bhakat faced world No. 3 Alejandra Valencia and was defeated 3-7.
Third-seeded Bommadevara secured another victory in the men’s individual recurve event by defeating Marco Nespoli of Italy, seeded ninth, with a score of 7-3.
This marks his second World Cup bronze, following his first medal at Stage 1 of the event held at the same venue last year.
Earlier, Bommadevara faced a semifinal 2-6 defeat against Kim Woojin of South Korea, who is ranked third in the world and a former Olympic team medalist.
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