Paris 2024 Olympics archery: Deepika Kumari moves into pre-quarterfinals; Tarundeep Rai ousted 

Former world No. 1 archer Deepika Kumari won two individual women's archery matches at the Paris 2024 Olympics to qualify for the pre-quarterfinals at Les Invalides on Wednesday.

Archers compete in best-of-five sets in the individual archery events at the Olympics. Each archer shoots three arrows per set and the archer with the higher aggregate score earns two points. If a set is drawn, each archer is awarded one point.

In the round of 64, the 23rd-seeded Deepika Kumari was on the verge of an early elimination but mounted a comeback to defeat Estonia’s 42nd-seeded Reena Parnat in the shoot-off.

The 30-year-old Deepika, playing in her fourth Olympic Games, scored a 9 in shoot-off while Reena hit an 8 after the match was tied 5-5 (29-28, 26-27, 27-27, 24-27, 30-27). The Indian archer was trailing 5-3 at one stage.

In the round of 32, Deepika showed good form to defeat the Netherlands’ Quinty Roeffen, seeded 55th, with a score of 6-2 (29-28, 27-29, 25-17, 28-23).

Deepika Kumari will be in action in the pre-quarterfinals on Saturday.

In the men’s event, Tarundeep Rai, who finished 14th in the ranking round last week, looked in good touch in his round of 64 match against 51st seed Tom Hall of Great Britain but faltered with a scoreline of 6-4 (27-27, 28-27, 25-28, 29-28, 29-29). The 40-year-old Tarundeep was playing in his fourth Olympics.

On Tuesday, Bhajan Kaur progressed to the round of 16 with wins over Indonesia’s 43rd-seeded Syifa Nurafifah Kamal and Poland’s 54th seed Wioleta Myszor. Ankita Bhakat and Dhiraj Bommadevara crashed out. Pravin Jadhav will start his individual campaign on Thursday.