Teenage archery sensation Deepika Kumari Thursday became the second Indian woman ever to sail into the final of a World Cup Stage IV meet.
National champion Deepika, who is also the reigning cadet world champion, will take on Ki Bo Bae of Korea for the gold medal in her maiden World Cup final at Shanghai.
Dola Banerjee has done it before winning the Dover World Cup in 2007.
Deepika, seeded 13th, crushed Wu Hui Ju of Chinese Taipei 6-0 in the semifinals and downed fifth seed Lorig Khatuna of the U.S in a close quarterfinal battle at 6-5.
Jayanta Talukdar too was on the threshold of making it to the final of the men’s individual recurve but fell to Lee Chang-Hwan of Korea 2-6 in the semifinals. The Guwahati-born Talukdar overcame Beijing Olympic Games gold medallist Viktor Ruban of Ukraine 6-4 in the quarterfinals. Talukdar is in fray for the bronze medal provided he quells the challenge of Athens Olympic Champion Marco Galiazzo of Italy.
Only three recurve archers, Tarundeep Rai, Rahul Banerjee and Dola Banerjee moved up to pre-quarterfinals before bowing out. Rai lost to Kim Woojin of Korea 2-4; Rahul Banerjee fell to Galiazzo 0-4 and Dola lost to Aida Roman of Mexico 3-4.
Mangal Singh Champia lost to Matthew Gary of Australia in the first round 4-2; L. Bombayla Devi and Rimil Buruily both fell in the first round.
In the compound division, national champion C. Srither and Chittibomma Jignas went out in the first round while Ritul Chatterjee and Khuraijam Ratan Singh fell by the wayside in the second round. The four women archers in this category were eliminated in the second round.
