Rising star Prathamesh Fuge pushed defending champion Mathias Fullerton in the men’s compound semifinal at the Archery World Cup Final before missing out on medal after losing a tense shoot-off.
In a thrilling end-to-end contest here on Saturday, both archers shot perfect 10s throughout all five regulation ends, totaling 15 arrows each, without dropping a single point.
The match was deadlocked 150 all, forcing a nail-biting shoot-off to decide the winner.
The shoot-off resulted in another 10-all tie, but the Danish archer edged out the Indian by mere millimeters, with his arrow landing closer to the centre.
A win would have confirmed a maiden medal for Fuge who was then left to fight the bronze playoff and lost to world champion Mike Schloesser 146-150.
Fullerton eventually settled for a silver after losing to American James ‘Jimmy’ Lutz 149-150.
Fuge earlier got the better of fellow Indian Priyansh 147-146 in the quarterfinal. Two Indians made the cut to the eight-member draw in the World Cup Final.
Multiple World Cup medalist Jyothi Surekha Vennam, who was the lone Indian qualifier in the women’s compound section, returned empty-handed from her second successive appearance.
Like last year, Jyothi’s campaign ended in the quarters, going down to Meeri-Marita Paas of Estonia 145-147.
Deepika Kumari and Dhiraj Bommadevara will lead India’s campaign in the recurve categories later on Sunday.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI)
