News

Grande, Ruiz secure first Indoor World Series titles at home

16 February 2026

Merida, Mexico

Real name:

A vociferous crowd, home expectations and a tough challenger.

But Matias Grande kept his composure until the very end to win the first-ever Indoor World Series title of his career. The 21-year-old Mexican edged USA’s Nicholas D’Ámour in a thrilling recurve men’s final via a shoot-off to top the podium on home soil in Merida.

In fact, it was a start-to-finish victory for Grande, who maintained solid form throughout the week. He topped the qualification round on Saturday with a score of 594, continued his dominant display, and sealed the title on Sunday.

With both archers showing exceptional skill and temperament, D’Ámour rallied from a 5–1 deficit in the fourth end to take four set points and force a tie-breaker. But the world number three from Celaya, Mexico delivered the closest 10 to clinch the win.

For both the archers, the Merida-IWS 500 will remain close to their heart having earned their best ever Indoor World Series result – Grande is the 2025 Pan American Indoor Champion and a third-place finish at The Vegas Shoot last year, while D’ Amour has a bronze medal from Indoor Archery World Series Finals.

D'Amour's one of the finest shooting lately was witnessed at the San Cristobal 2025 Pan American Field Archery Championships where he edged world number one Marcus D’Almeida to claim gold, also in Mexico.

The recurve men bronze medal match was another thriller between two home archers. Pan American Indoor Championship silver medallist Juan Pablo Tellez Aguirre fought back from two set point down to pip Luis Alvarez for the podium finish.

The 15th seed Tellez Aguirre managed a perfect final end (10,10,10) for his first medal at the Indoor World Series.

It was yet again a Mexican winner in recurve women final with teenager Angela Ruiz securing her best result in Indoor World Series.

Buoyed by the home crowd, Ruiz maintained her top form to shoot three perfect end - 30 (10,10,10) - to claim a comfortable 6-0 win over another Mexican and Berlin 2023 Hyundai World Archery Championships silver medallist Alejandra Valencia.

"My performance here was more or less what I've been working on since Nimes. The idea is to repeat it, and also improve the individual result. But I'm very excited to be doing it here," said Ruiz, the Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallist in women’s team event.

"It's like a step in the right direction, towards what I want to achieve for Los Angeles. We're going step by step, and I'm building a little more confidence. And today, I just went with the flow. I'm very excited."

Competing in her debut Indoor World Series season, the 19-year-old claimed silver behind Victoria Sebastian in Nimes, already underlining her rising consistency on the indoor circuit.

Sebastian, who was chasing a third title of the season following victories at the Taipei Archery Open and in Nimes last month, faltered in the quarterfinals going down 6-4 to Gaby Schloesser, who finished fourth behind Ana Luiza Sliachticas Caetano, the Rio Indoor 250 winner.

You can watch all medal matches back on archery+.

Las Vegas (USA) hosts the season finale of the Indoor Archery World Series - The Vegas Shoot from 27-29 March.