Abhishek Verma loses in opening round of Archery World Cup Final

Top Indian compound archer Abhishek Verma’s campaign at the 2021 Archery World Cup Final ended after the first-round loss to eventual silver-medallist Braden Gellenthien of the USA in Yankton, USA on Thursday.

Abhishek Verma returned empty-handed for the first time from a World Cup Final, which features the top eight archers from the four stages of the World Cup.

Making his third World Cup Final appearance, Abhishek Verma slipped up early in the quarter-final match against Braden Gellenthien, after firing a stray 8 in the first end.

The Indian made a comeback in the third and fourth ends but five straight 10s from the world No. 4 American left Verma two points behind going into the fifth and final end.

Braden continued his rich form by scoring a perfect 30 in his three arrows while Verma could only muster up 28 and thus lost the match 146-142.

Verma, who had qualified for the season-ending final by winning the third stage of the World Cup in Paris, has previously won an individual silver in 2015 and a team silver and an individual bronze in 2018.

The 2014 Asian Games gold medallist Verma had also clinched the compound mixed team silver with Jyothi Vennam at the World Championships last week.

India still have two more archers in the recurve category which begins late on Thursday.

Tokyo Olympians and partners Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari will be competing in their individual recurve events.

Atanu Das will be up against Germany’s Maximilian Weckmueller while Deepika Kumari takes on Svetlana Gomboeva of Russia.