As the world's best 16 men and women recurve archers square off on Sunday in the World Cup final at Istanbul, the Indians will have their eyes fixed on the 17-year-old World junior champion, Deepika Kumari.
Having made it to the tournament as the No. 3 seed out of seven who qualified — the eighth spot went to the host archer — Deepika will come up against sixth seed Alejandra Valencia of Mexico in the quarterfinals. A win will pit her against the winner of the contest between top seed Korean Han Gyeonghee and seventh ranked French Berengere Schuh.
Deepika has the right credentials to make it big this year. She is a winner of the 2009 cadet world title and a current junior World champion. At the senior level she is the individual and team Commonwealth Games' champion in 2010. She has a team silver medal at the Turin senior World championships in July and two individual medals at the Ogden and Shanghai World Cup stages.
Recurve matches will be best-of five sets. Each set consists of three arrows. A set is worth two points. Each archer gets one point in case of a tied set. The first archer with six set points will win the match. In case of a tied match at 5-5 in set points, a one-arrow shoot-off will determine the winner whose arrow is closest to centre.
None of the Indian men archers made it to the final this year. Jayanta Talukdar had qualified last year but failed to impress.
Dola Banerjee is the only Indian to win this title in 2007.
