Two young Russians in recurve semifinals

 In the recurve division, the athletes shoot 3 sets of 6 arrows or 5 sets of 3 arrows (as of the quarterfinals). There are 2 set points to grab per set. The one with the most set points wins. In case of a tie in set points at the end of the match, the archers shoot a single-arrow shoot-off. Closest to center wins.   Recurve Men The 1/32 elimination round gave some interesting results. In the rematch of the Porec bronze medal match last month, Simon TERRY (GBR) gave no chance for revenge to Jean-Charles VALLADONT (FRA): The Brit was untouchable and won 4-0 (59-53, 59-50). Another French archer went down: the recent European champion Romain GIROUILLE! He won the first set against Elias CUESTA (ESP) 57-53. He lost the second set 51-53 and they tied the last set. In the shoot-off, CUESTA earned a perfect 10, while GIROUILLE achieved only a 7. France finally got something to cheer about when Thomas AUBERT beat the silver medallist in Porec Vic WUNDERLE (USA) 4-0 (53-51, 57-50). The American who arrived late on site at the beginning of the week might still have suffered from jetlag. Juan Rene SERRANO (MEX) beat the winner of the Shanghai stage last year CHEN Wenyuan (CHN). The Mexican prevailed 5-1 in a closer match than it seems (55-55, 54-52, 56-55). Finally Matthew GRAY (AUS) had a nice fight with the “new” TSYREMPILOV, Bilikto. The Australian took the first set 54-53, the Russian the second one 58-56. They drew the last one 55-55. GRAY prevailed in the single arrow shoot-off 9-8.   In the second round, GRAY had another tight match against the No. 9 seed CHENG Chu Sian (MAS). They tied the first two sets 56-56 and 54-54. In the decisive set, the Australian shot an impressive 58 to advance to the next round. CHENG scored nice 56, but that was not enough. The Antalya bronze medallist in 2006 and Indoor world champion last year, Y. V. HIRSTOV (BUL) fought another intense match against the local Yusuf CORBA (TUR). The Bulgarian won the first set 55-53. Then they tied 52-52. Finally, the Turkish athlete managed to come back in the match, winning the last set 54-52. He could not pull the upset all the way through in the shoot-off. He made an 8, while HIRSTOV had a perfect 10. The day of AUBERT also stopped in the second round. The No. 2 seed Rahul BANERJEE (IND) proved to be too good for the Frenchman. The Indian athlete won 4-0 (57-52, 58-54).   GRAY gave it all in the third round but came up short in the last set this time. He lost against the No. 8 seed Dmytro HRACHOV (UKR) 2-4 (56-55, 53-57, 52-55). The No. 1 seed Brady ELLISON dropped his first points against Alan WILLS (GBR) but prevailed 4-2 (55-55, 54-51, 57-57). The No. 5 seed Markyan IVASHKO (UKR) stopped Simon TERRY 4-0 (57-55, 57-55). The last Ukrainian, Olympic champion Viktor RUBAN had a tight match against Michele FRANGILLI (ITA). They tied the first set 57-57. Then the Italian won the second one 57-55, but the Ukrainian managed to tie the game in third set, 56-54. In the shoot-off they both scored a 9! However, FRANGILLI was close to centre. The No. 6 Jayanta TALUKDAR (IND) beat Baljinima TSYREMPILOV 4-0 (58-55, 55-54), but his teammate BANERJEE lost against JING Xiangqing (CHN) 2-4 (55-52, 54-58, 52-56). Finally the 2004 Olympic champion Marco GALIAZZO (ITA) beat HIRSTOV 4-2 (50-54, 57-55, 55-52).   In the quarterfinals, the athletes shoot 5 sets of 3 arrows. This did not bother ELLISON and JING. The American beat HRACHOV 6-2 (29-28, 30-27, 27-28, 28-26). The Chinese upset the 2004 Olympic champion GALIAZZO 6-0 (27-25, 28-19, 26-25). The two other quarterfinals were much more intense. TABATA Shungo (JPN) trailed 0-4 against TALUKDAR (28-29, 27-28). However the Indian could not finish it. TABATA won two sets and tied one (29-27, 27-27, 28-25). The match ended tied at 5 set points to 5. In the shoot-off TALUKDAR made 7, while TABATA scored a 10! The No. 14 seeded Japanese advanced to the semifinal. FRANGILLI and IVASHKO, respectively seeded No. 4 and 5, fought a rollercoaster match. FRANGILLI took the lead, then IVASHKO took it, then FRANGILLI tied the match in the last set (29-25, 26-26, 29-28, 28-27, 26-29). In the shoot-off, they both scored 9, and for the second time today against a Ukrainian, FRANGILLI was closest to centre!   The semifinal will take place on Antalya’s beach on Friday afternoon.   Recurve women There was no big surprise in the 1/32 elimination round. Favourites from qualifications Justyna MOSPINEK (POL), CHENG Ming (CHN), Ksenia PEROVA (RUS), Natalia SANCHEZ (COL), Aida ROMAN (VEN), Deepika KUMARI (IND) all won their matches 4-0. Two matches ended in a tie at 3-3 and went to a shoot-off: Jennifer NICHOLS (USA) against Alana MACDOUGALL (AUS) and Mariana AVITIA against Jessica TOMASI (ITA). NICHOLS won 10-8 and TOMASI 9-8. The recent European bronze medallist Begunhan Elif UNSAL (TUR) tied with Sophie DODEMONT (FRA) in the first two sets (53-53, 50-50) and displayed great shooting in the third one (54-52) to win 4-2.   Overall the matches were tighter in the next round. Several archers trailed before claiming the victory. MOSPINEK lost the first set 50-52 to Maja Buskbjerg JAGER (DEN) but progressively raised her level in the next two sets (54, 56) to win 4-2. The No. 2 seed CHENG took the best start over the 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Alison WILLIAMSON (GBR), but the more experienced archer came back 55-54, 55-53 in the second and third sets to win the match. Despite an excellent start at 58-53, Berengere SCHUH lost her match against Victoriya KOVAL (UKR). The scores of the second and third set were 55-53 and 55-54 for KOVAL. In another close match, the 2009 world bronze medallist Natalia SANCHEZ led the young UNSAL 2-0 (56-51) after the first set. The archers tied in the next one (52-52) for a score of 3-1. The local archer came back in the last set (56-52) to tie at 3-3, and then won the shoot-off! Interestingly, SCHUH and SANCHEZ would have won if their matches had been shot in the old competition format. India will be the most represented country in the 1/8 elimination round with three archers: Dola BANERJEE, Laishram Bombayla DEVI and Deepika KUMARI.   In the 1/8 elimination round, 5 out of the 8 matches ended in two sets at 4-0. KOVAL (No. 16) beat the leader from qualifications MOSPINEK. The other easy winners were GUO Faping (CHN), Inna STEPANOVA (RUS), BANERJEE and UNSAL, who was very impressive with scores of 58 and 56. Pia Carmen LIONETTI took more time to beat the No. 6 seed ZHU Shanshan (CHN): the scores were 1-1, 3-1, 4-2. An interesting match featured WILLIAMSON and the young KUMARI, who wasn’t even born when WILLIAMSON made her first Olympic appearance in Barcelona 1992! Both archer tied in the first set and then won one set each to end up at 3-3. Youth prevailed over experience in the shoot-off, KUMARI winning 9-7. As for PEROVA, after winning the first set 54-51, the 21-year-old Russian had a disastrous second set against Amy OLIVER (GBR) at 49-52. The archers tied at 2-2. The Russian won the last set by just one point, 51-50, and advanced for the first time of her career to a World Cup quarterfinal.   PEROVA and STEPANOVA competed well in their first ever World Cup quarterfinal. The 20-year-old STEPANOVA was perfect against KUMARI, winning 6-0 (25-24, 30-25, 28-24), while PEROVA lost only one set point to LIONETTI to win 7-1 (28-27, 28-28, 27-22, 29-25). UNSAL had a very bad start in her match against BANERJEE (22-27) and was never able to recover from it. She lost in three sets 0-6. Finally, Victoriya KOVAL had the highest scores of the quarterfinals to qualify over GUO 6-2 (29-23, 29-26, 26-27, 29-26).   KOVAL will shoot the semifinal against BANERJEE, while the two Russians will fight it out in the other semifinal on Friday morning on the beautiful beach of Antalya.   Vanahé ANTILLE / Didier MIEVILLE World Archery Communication