Fencing World Cup 2022, Athens: India’s Bhavani Devi knocked out from table of 64
Bhavani Devi won five matches before going down to former Italian world championships gold medallist Martina Criscio.
Tokyo Olympian Bhavani Devi’s run in the women’s individual sabre Fencing World Cup 2022 in Athens, Greece ended in the main table of 64 on Saturday.
Bhavani Devi, who became the only Indian fencer to compete at the Olympics at Tokyo 2020, was the lone Indian competitor at the event.
In the preliminaries, world No. 59 Bhavani Devi finished third in her pool with three wins and two losses. She beat Greece’s Lytina Ekaterini, Hungary’s Laszlo Luca and Singapore’s Loo Heidi Yan Kay but lost to South Korea’s Jeon Eunhye and Croatia’s Baldo Zoe Marie.
It was enough to advance her to the preliminary table of 128 stage.
In the preliminary table of 128, the Indian fencer comfortably beat world No. 63 Leung Lok Man Laren of Hong Kong 15-8 and then fended off Canada’s Gordon Tomar 15-12 in the preliminary table of 64.
The wins entered the Indian fencer in the main table of 64. Up against world No. 29 Martina Criscio, a member of Italy’s world champion sabre team from 2017, Bhavani Devi went down 15-11 to crash out of the competition.
In fencing World Cups, the top 16 ranked fencers automatically enter the main table of 64 while the remaining field is divided into pools. Competitors in each pool play each other in a round robin format.
The top 16 fencers from the pool stage advance to the main table of 64 while the remaining fencers are drawn in the preliminary elimination stage which includes two rounds – the preliminary table of 128 and the preliminary table of 64.
The 32 fencers who make it through the two rounds of preliminary eliminators join the other 32 (16 top-ranked and 16 top fencers from the pool stages) in the main table of 64 (T64). The tournament then progresses in the traditional knockout format until the final.
Bhavani Devi was ousted in the preliminary round of 64 in the previous two World Cups this year – the first at Tbilisi, Georgia, and then at the Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Bhavani Devi is scheduled to compete at another Fencing World Cup in Belgium on March 18 and 19.
Meanwhile, India’s Udaivir Singh finished 196th among 271 fencers in the men’s epee event at the Westend Grand Prix in Hungary.