Women's world number one Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav registered a come-from-behind 5-3 victory in the Round of 16 of the mixed team archery event at the Yumenoshima Ranking Field.
The Indian duo got the better of Chinese Taipei's Chih-Chun Tang and Chia-En to book their place in the quarterfinals. They will next face the winner of the match between Bangladesh and top seeds South Korea at 11:04am IST.
Kumari and Jadhav started off on the wrong foot as their opponents edged them with a score of 36-35 in the opening set. In the next set, both the teams scored a couple of 10’s and 9’s each and the Chinese Taipei maintained their composure to keep their 1-point lead intact.
However, the Indian pair notched up a perfect score of 40 in the 3rd set while their opponents could only score 35 as India took the lead in the contest. Deepika and Jadhav showed perfect co-ordination to score 37 in the 4th set while Chun Tang and Chia-En scored 36 as the duo knocked out their opponents in thrilling fashion.
The Indian team had qualified as the ninth-best team after the ranking round on Friday while Chinese Taipei were ranked eighth.
The Mixed Team event is introduced in archery for the first time and India faced off Chinese Taipei in the first game of the competition. The husband-wife duo of Deepika Kumari and Atanu were expected to team up for the mixed team event, but Pravin Jadhav’s impressive display in the Men’s individual ranking round meant that he paired up with Kumari.
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