Archery World Championships: 3 Indians sail into quarters

Yankton (USA), Sep 24 (PTI): Indian archers Ankita Bhakat, Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam kept medal hopes alive in the individual competition by advancing to the quarterfinals of their respective events in the World Championships here.
India have already confirmed two medals by entering the compound women and mixed finals slated in the early hours of Saturday.
In the individual recurve event, Ankita produced the biggest upset on Thursday when the 23-year-old Kolkata archer held her nerves to eliminate Korean world number four Kang Chae-Young, a team Olympic gold-medallist at the recently-concluded Tokyo Games. Ankita dropped just one set to defeat the Korean heavyweight 6-4 (29-28, 28-28, 27-27, 24-29, 29-28) and set up a quarterfinal clash with Casey Kaufhold of the USA later in the day. Ankita started off in spectacular fashion, shooting two 10s en route to 29 out of 30, mounting early pressure on the reigning Olympic team champion.
Thereafter, both the archers had a neck and neck battle tying two sets as Ankita held on to a slender 4-2 lead.
The Indian was wayward in the fourth set shooting in the red ring thrice (8, 8, 8) while Chae-Young was at her best (X, 10, 9) to bring the match on an even keel.
Locked 4-4, Ankita showed fine composure to fire in two 10s to clinch the issue. Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam also advanced into their respective last-eight rounds.
Reigning World Cup gold-medallist Verma had two perfect rounds as he beat Jozef Bosansky of Slovakia 145-142 (29-28, 30-27, 28-29, 30-29, 28-29). The former Asian Games team champion Verma will face American world number one Mike Schloesser later in the day.