Veteran Indian archer Deepika Kumari ended her campaign with a 6-4 loss against Korea’s Nam Suhyeon on Saturday, 3 August. Competing on Saturday, Deepika started off well but slowly faded away from the game. Deepika shot a 6 and 7 in crucial stages, which affected her results on the day. With Deepika’s loss, the archery contingent from India returns empty-handed from Paris. The Indian archery contingent cae in with a lot of promise, but have failed to enter any of the medal rounds.

On the day, Deepika Kumari started with a brilliant set of 9,10,9 winning the first set of the quarter-final against Nam Suhyeon, the second-ranked archer from the ranking round. She kept herself calm under pressure, taking 2 points away from the Korean Archer. The second set was inconsistent from the Indian archer as she shot a 6 and a 9 after starting with a 10. Deepika's shooting was characterised by long holds, as she shot most of her arrows in the final two seconds. Most of her final second releases hit 6,7 and 8s.

The veteran archer hit back in the third set of the match shooting 10,9,10, clinching that set 29-28 by a narrow margin. After leading the match 4-2 after three sets, Deepika once again faltered in the fourth, shooting a 7 under pressure. The Korean archer kept her nerve and won the 4th set 29-27 to push the competition into the final round.

In the final set of the match, Deepika shot 3 nines, against Nam Suhyeon's 10,9,10, sealing her fate in the event.

Earlier in the day, Bhajan Kaur was not able to hold her nerves in a thrilling shoot-off against Indonesia's Diananda Choirunisa in her Round of 16 match.

Bhajan, who had been extremely consistent in her maiden Olympic appearance, fought back from behind to make it 5-5 and force a shoot-off. However, she shot 8 in the tie-breaker to lose to Choirunisa who won it with a 9.

Source: India Today