Indian archer Deepika Kumari started her Tokyo Olympics campaign, slotting in at 9th in the ranking round on Friday. Deepika scored 663/720 and was let down by a couple low scores in the second half.
Deepika Kumari hit three 7s and a couple of 8s in the second half, which pushed her down the order.
The archery competition comprises a ranking round, where 128 archers -- 64 men and as many women -- shoot 72 arrows at a targets 70 metres away, Each archer is given two minutes to shoot six arrows in each round with 720 being the perfect score.
Based on the scores in the round, the first-ranked archer goes up against the 64th-ranked archer, the second is pitted against the 63rd, and so on.
On a day when South Korea's An San created an Olympic record, scoring 680 and finishing on top of the charts, Deepika's performance fluctuated between brilliant and mediocre as the Indian world No 1 started at No 8 after the first six shots but slipped to 14th, finishing the first half placed fourth on the leaderboard.
San surpassed Ukrainian great Lina Herasymenko's record of 673 points set in 1996.
The Indian archer, who started at No 8 after the first 6 shots, climbed up to 4th by the end of the first half but a couple of 53 scores in the second half saw her drop to 9th.
The World Number 1 had slipped to 14th at one stage but roared back to grab the fourth position on the leaderboard at the end of the first half.
In the 2nd half, Deepika began with 55 in round 1, retaining the fourth position. A tight battle followed with Deepika hitting low scores in round 2 which pushed her down to 8th. She followed it up with X-X-10-10-9-7 — a total of 56 in round 3 of the second half, taking herself up to the seventh position.
She raked up another 58 to make it to sixth place after round 4 of the second half and followed it up with 53 in round 5. Another 54 points in round 6 of the second half led Deepika to finish at the 9th position with 663 points.
With her ninth-place finish, Deepika will now face 56th placed Bhu Karma from Bhutan in the first elimination round on 28 July. Bhu Karma, a Rio Olympian, is 193rd in the world rankings.
The Indian men’s trio of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav will take the field next for the men’s ranking round. Deepika is competing in her third Olympics. She will take part in women's individual and mixed team event where she is paired with husband Atanu Das.
(With various inputs)
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