Indian archer Ankita Bhakat.
Credit: X/ @India_AllSports
Antalya: Indian archer Deepika Kumari suffered an embarrassing opening round defeat to little known Yaylagul Ramazanova of Azerbaijan, while Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur progressed to the pre-quarterfinals in the Final Olympic Qualifier, here on Sunday.
Ankita and Bhajan are thus one win away from sealing an individual women's quota. The individual quotas are allotted to the top-eight nations. Each country gets one individual quota.
So far, India has a solitary quota in men's individual section through Dhiraj Bommadevara from the Asian qualifying leg.
Ankita defeated Shelley Hilton 6-4 (24-26, 25-25, 28-20, 25-25, 27-25) and Mikaella Moshe 7-3 (28-25, 25-27, 27-27, 28-25, 26-25), both from Israel, to make the last-16.
Third seeded Bhajan, who got a bye into the third round of 32, overcame Urantungalag Bishindee of Mongolia 6-2 (29-27, 28-26, 26-29, 27-24).
Deepika falters Deepika, who qualified as second seed, won the opening two sets to lead 4-0, but her shooting went horribly wrong in the next two sets where she scored 23 and 24 points respectively, landing five of her six arrows in the outer rings.
She shot thrice in the eight-point red ring, once in the seven-point red ring and while another hit the outer six-point ring as Yaylagul gleefully brought it level before 4-4.
The Azerbaijan archer then won the fifth set with a solid display and seal a splendid win 6-4 (26-28, 25-27, 23-26, 24-25, 27-29).
"There was no equipment malfunction but she had poor release after failing to anchor her bow properly. It could be pressure or something else," a team official told PTI.
Not all is lost for team quotas Indian men's and women's teams have failed to seal the quotas from the Final Olympic Qualifier. The men's team had qualified as top seed but lost to Mexico in the quarterfinals. The women's team, who got fifth seed in rankings round, exited in the pre-quarters.
But they still can still Paris Games berths if they maintain their World Rankings till the cutoff date of June 24.
The top two nations from among the countries who have not got team quotas will make the cut for the Paris Olympics on June 24 after the third stage of the World Cup here beginning on Tuesday.
India will have to put up a good show to maintain their rankings.
The men's team is currently No. 2 with 243 points behind South Korea who have already qualified.
Chinese Taipei and Italy, who are behind India in the rankings, have already qualified. India's nearest competitors are China (204 points) and Japan (190).
The women's team is currently No. 8 behind South Korea, China, Germany, France, Mexico, USA and Chinese Taipe all these seven nations have already got team quotas.
It means the Indian women's team with 185 points are at the top in the rankings race with Indonesia (179.5), Colombia (152), Italy (150) vying for the second spot.