India's new look compound mixed team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Ojas Pravin Deotale found instant success by reaching the gold medal match at the Archery World Cup 2023 Stage 1, here on Friday.
Vennam and Deotale edged out Malaysia's Fatin Nurfatehah Mat Salleh and Mohd Juwaidi Mazuki 157-155 in the semifinal. The Indian duo will face Chinese Taipei's Chen Yi-Hsuan and Chen Chieh-Lun in Saturday' s gold medal match.
In 2022, Vennam won World Games bronze and Paris World Cup gold with Abhishek Verma. She has paired up with 20-year-old Ojas for the first time."I'm very happy. We all expected we could go to the final, because we have a good team. My partner was in good shooting shape. And I was, too. We enjoyed our shooting a lot," Ojas said.
The new pairing, who was given a bye in the first round, swept through the rounds to guarantee at least a silver medal. The duo defeated Mariya Shkolna and Gilles Seywert of Luxembourg 159-157 in the second round and beat Sophie Dodemont and Adrien Gontier of France 159-156 in the quarterfinals.
On the other hand, the recurve mixed team of Atanu Das and Bhajan Kaur lost to Randi Degn and Oliver Staudt of Denmark 3-5 in the opening round.Earlier, Vennam, who shot a world record 713 to top the qualification, was untouchable in compound women's eliminations and claimed four convincing victories to reach the semifinals on Thursday.
Jyothi downed Denmark's Tanja Gellenthein 147-142 in the quarterfinal stage to set up a meeting with Great Britain's world No.1 Ella Gibson.