Indian archer Deepika Kumari registered a close win to move into the Round of 16 in the women’s individual archery competition at the Tokyo Olympics.
The World No. 1 beat Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez of the USA 6-4 in a windy Round-of-32 match at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field on Wednesday.
Deepika lost the first set as she registered a score of 25 (7 and two 9s), while Jennifer scored 26 (9, 10 and 7) to take a 2-0 lead.
In the second set, Deepika was able to make a comeback with 8 and two 10s against Jennifer’s two 9s and 7, bringing the scores level at 2-2.
Deepika took the third set with 10, 9 and 8, compared to Jennifer’s 8, 10 and 7.
With a 4-2 lead in the match, one expected Deepika to wrap the match easily. But Jennifer made a fight-back with 9 and two 8s, making the score level at 4-4. Deepika, on the other hand, had two 9s and 6 against her name.
In the decider set, Deepika began with two 9s and finished with 8 to score 26. Jennifer began with two 8s and needed a ten to defeat Deepika. But her final arrow went for 9, giving Deepika a close victory.
Earlier in the day, Deepika had easily beaten Bhutan’s Karma 6-0 in the Round of 64. The 27-year-old maintained her lead from the start till the end, scoring 26, 26 and 27 compared to Karma’s low scores of 23, 23 and 24 in three sets.
Deepika, paired with Pravin Jadhav, had lost 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the mixed team event to eventual gold-medal winners, An San and Kim Je Deok of South Korea.
