 "Rio Olympics: Bombayla Devi, Deepika Kumari in pre-quarters of women's individual recurve")
Laishram Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the women's individual recurve event as Indian archers rounded off a good day in office at the Olympic Games here today.
Competing in her third Olympics, the 31-year-old Bombayla, who finished 24th in the ranking round, dished out a dominating show to get the better off Chinese Taipei's Lin Shih-Chia 6-2 in the 1/16 elimination after beating Austria's Laurence Baldauff in 1/32 elimination round.
Deepika also put up an excellent show as she comprehensively defeated Italy's Sartori Guendalina 6-2 in the 1/16 elimination after prevailing over her opponent from Georgia, Kristine Esebua, 6-4 in the 1/32 elimination round.
The 22-year-old from Jharkhand, who had lost in the first round in London Games four years ago, came back strongly from a set down to register a dominating 24-27, 29-26, 28-26, 28-27 victory in the end.
Deepika lost the first set before hitting two consecutive 10s and a nine in the second set to aggregate 29 as compared to 26 by the Italian.
After the first two 10s, Deepika sealed the set in her favour after her opponent hit a seven and a nine in her first two attempts.
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The Indian once again started with a 10 in the third set, while two 9s in the next two arrows gave her a total of 28. The Italian, on the other hand, managed just 26.
Heading into the fourth set with a 4-2 advantage, Deepika tightened the noose. While both the archers began the round with an eight each, followed by 10, the last attempt made all the difference. While the Italian shot a nine, Deepika hit the bull's eye to eke out a one-point win.
Earlier, in the round of 1/32, Deepika beat her Georgian rival 27-26, 29-29, 30-27, 27-29, 29-29 to enter the next round.
In the first set, Deepika won by just one point as she managed to hit a 10 with her second arrow as compared to none by the Georgian girl.
After a 29-29 tie in the second set, Deepika hit the bull's eye in her all three attempts in the third set to surge ahead 5-1.
However, she lost the rhythm in the fourth set, going down 27-29. Deepika bounced back and kept her nerves in the deciding set to tie the scores 29-29 and clinch the issue in her favour.
Earlier in the day, Bombayla, who had lost in the second round of women's individual recurve event at the London Olympics, outclassed Lin 27-24, 27-24, 26-27, 28-26 to reach the pre-quarterfinals.
Up against Lin, who had already clinched a bronze medal in the women's team event, Bombayla started with a 10 and then hit 8 and 9 to total 27 as against 24 (8, 7, 9) of her opponent.
The Indian scored 8, 9, 10 against Lin's hat-trick of 8s to clinch the second set. In the third set, the Chinese Taipei girl hit the bull's eye twice even as Bombayla came up with a 7 and 9 in the first two shots. In the final shot, the Indian hit a 10 but that was not enough to win the set.
In the fourth set, Bombayla once again produced a perfect score of 10 and then hit 9 twice against Lin's 7, 9, 10 to seal the issue in her favour.
In the 1/32 elimination round, the girl from Minupur had rallied her way to beat Austria's Laurence Baldauff 6-2.
Bombayla showed tremendous nerves as she bounced back after losing the first set to outclass Laurence in the second, third and fourth set in the first round.
Bombayla, who was the best Indian performer in the women's team event, scored a 24-27, 28-24, 27-23, 26-24 win in the 1/32 elimination round.
The 41-year-old Laurence started off well with a hat-trick of 9s in the first set to get the better of the Indian, who started off with a 9 but then shot 7 consecutively.
However, Bombayla hit the bulls eye to start the second set on a dominating note and then produced consecutive 9s to bounce back into the contest. She produced a hat-trick of 9s in the third set to lead 4-2, before sealing the contest with a series of 9, 9, 8 in the fourth set.
India's Atanu Das had also entered the pre-quarterfinals of the Individual men's recurve event yesterday.