Heena Sidhu made the women’s air pistol final with a career-best score of 388, but failed to capitalise on her chance and ended up eighth in the shooting World Cup in Changwon, Korea, on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Heena was the first to be ousted among the eight finalists as she paid for a second shot of 7.6.
She had shot an impressive series of 96, 96, 99 and 97 in the qualification phase to be the joint leader with the ‘2012 shooter of the year’ Kim Jangmi of Korea, who eventually bagged the bronze.
The eighth place notwithstanding, it was a strong return to the competitive circuit for Heena who was given a quota place for the London Olympics, based on her consistently good performance.
The student of dentistry, Heena had recently married another prominent shooter Ronak Pandit.
Vijay Kumar disappoints
Meanwhile, Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar shot a below par 278at the half-way stage in the 25-metre rapid fire pistol, to be 13 points behind the leaders.
He had shot 89 in the 4-second series after shooting 93 and 96 in the 8-second and 6-second sections.
The second stage, featuring the same series of five shots, twice each in 8, 6 and 4 seconds, will be shot on the morrow to decide the semifinalists.
Two other Indian shooters, Harpreet Singh and Pemba Tamang had faredslightly better than Vijay Kumar as they shot an identical score of280.
The results: Women: Air pistol: 1. Ren Jie (Chn) 201.8 (382); 2. Zorana Arunovic (Srb) 199.0 (387); 3. Kim Jangmi (Kor) 177.8 (388); 8. Heena Sidhu 75.7 (388); 14. Annu Raj Singh 379; 27. Ruchita Vinerkar 374. MQS: Malaika Goel 383; Shreya Gawande 368. 50m rifle 3-position: 1. Andrea Arsovic (Srb) 455.5 (583); 2. Li Peijing (Chn) 454.3 (585); 3. Ivana Maksimovic (Srb) 442.5 (572); 18. Tejaswini Sawant 564; 24. Lajja Gauswami 556; 33. Meena Kumari 541. MQS: Susan Elizabeth Koshy 559.
