Deepika Kumari returned to the finals after three years and won her fifth silver medal.

India's leading recurve archer Deepika Kumari won her fifth silver medal in the World Cup final after losing 0-6 to China's Li Jiaman. Returning to the World Cup finals after three years following the birth of her daughter in December 2022, four-time Olympian Deepika was seeded third in the eight-archers field.

She had an easy performance in the semi-finals, but perhaps the pressure of the gold medal match against fourth-seeded Li Jiaman, the team silver medalist at the Paris Olympics, got to her. This was Deepika's ninth appearance in a World Cup final where she also won a bronze medal. Dola Banerjee is the only Indian archer to win a gold medal at a World Cup final, having topped the podium at Dubai 2007.

The five-member Indian contingent, comprising three compound and two recurve archers, thus concluded their season-ending World Cup finals campaign with just one medal.

Deepika could not maintain the momentum after her spectacular win in the semi-finals against Mexico's Alejandra Valencia. They lost the first set by one point (26–27). Despite improvement in the second set, the Chinese archers took a 2-0 lead (30-28) thanks to a 30 from Li, including an X-ring shot.

The third set proved decisive as Deepika's second arrow landed in the red 7-ring, allowing Lee to claim victory with three solid 9s, winning the set 27–25 and sealing a gold medal in her first World Cup final.

In the semi-finals, Deepika had a win over home favorite and Paris Olympics bronze medalist Valencia, defeating them 6-4 (29-28, 26-26, 26-29, 28-28, 28-27). It also avenged Deepika's bronze medal loss to Valencia at the Yecheon World Cup earlier this year. Deepika's campaign started with an impressive 6-0 win over China's Yang Xiaoli (27-23, 29-22, 29-27).

other results

In the men's recurve category, Dheeraj Bommadevara, despite leading 4-2, could not hold off the challenge from Paris Olympics bronze medalist Lee Woo Seok of South Korea in the opening round and had an early exit.

In men's recurve, third-seeded Dheeraj was India's only qualifier. Facing second seed Lee Woo Seok, Dheeraj started strongly, drawing the first set and winning the second.

However, they missed the opportunity to end the match by just one point in the third set with the South Koreans level, before performing flawlessly in the fourth and fifth sets. Ultimately Dheeraj lost 4-6 (28-28, 29-26, 28-28, 26-30, 28-29).

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