Archery World Cup: Tarundeep Rai, Ridhi Phor enter mixed team final, confirm India's second medal

Indian archers Tarundeep Rai and Ridhi Phor assured India of a medal when they stormed into the recurve mixed team final at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Antalya on Friday.

Tarundeep and Ridhi secured India's second medal after the Indian men's compound team assured the first when they entered the final.

India can win a third medal in the Archery World Cup Stage 1 as the compound mixed team of Abhishek Verma and Muskan Kirar will play their bronze medal playoff match against Croatia on Saturday.

Verma and Kirar narrowly lost (156-157) to Slovenia's Toja Ellison and Aljaz Brenk in the semi-finals.

Tarundeep Rai and Ridhi Phor beat Spain 5-3 in the semi-final. The Indian team, seeded fifth, started on a high by taking an early 2-0 lead to assert their dominance. However, Spain attempted to crawl back into the contest with some resistance in the middle sets. However, the Indians kept their cool to seal the tie in their favor at 5-3 (38-35, 36-39, 38-38, 36-35).

Tarundeep and Ridhi will face 11th seed Britain in the recurve mixed team gold medal clash on Sunday.

Indian women's archery teams fail to advance

Meanwhile, the men's and women's recurve archery teams couldn't make it count as they were ousted in the quarter-finals.

The Indian recurve men's team comprising of Tarundeep Rai, Sachin Gupta and Jayanta Talukdar looked off-color as they lost to Ukraine in the quarter-finals. The men's recurve team, seeded first, got a first-round bye and beat Croatia 6-2 in the second round. However, they were unable to get past Ukraine, losing 5-1.

Meanwhile, the women’s recurve team of Ridhi Phor, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur lost to Italy 2-6 in the quarter-finals. The women's recurve team were seeded fourth and got a bye in the first round. They beat USA 6-0 in the second round before failing to cross the Italian hurdle.