Hyderabad, Oct 14 Kakatiya Knights and Mighty Marathas stayed clear at the top of the standings as they beat Rajputana Royals and Chola Chiefs, respectively, in Archery Premier League Season 2 here on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Prithviraaj Yodhas downed Chero Archers to move into third place with eight points.
In the final match of the day, Chiefs’ woeful run of form continued as they remained rooted to the bottom of the table with just one win in seven matches, suffering a fifth straight defeat.
In complete contrast, Marathas, who had started the season with two losses, have now won five on the trot and appear to be the team to beat.
The last time Prithviraaj Yodhas and Chero Archers met, three sudden-death tiebreakers were needed to decide a winner. But in the reverse fixture, Yodhas made light work of Chero Archers and registered a convincing 5-1.
Yodhas were led by some superb shooting by 16-year-old recurve archer Gatha Anandrao Khadake, who shot 58 out of a possible 60, and Asian Games compound medallist Ganesh Thirumuru (59).
With this win, Yodhas arrested their own mini slump while Chero Archers – who had started the season brightly – have now suffered three straight defeats.
Carrying on from where they left off in their previous meeting, it appeared as though there would be very little to separate Yodhas and Chero as they tied the first set 75-75.
But the second set would slip away from Chero as Kumkum Mohod was left with little time to shoot the final arrow and she could manage only a 7, while Yodhas finished the set strongly with four 10s.
USA’s Casey Kaufhold then replaced Kumkum ahead of the third set but she started with an 8 that opened up a window for Yodhas, who saw Gatha step up once more with two 10s in that set. Matias Grande calmly closed out the set and match 77-74.
In the second match Royals had two of the best-scoring archers in the match but when it mattered, Knights came up with clutch arrows. Led by Neeraj Chauhan, who has emerged as one of the stories of the APL season with his consistently high scores while shooting last in each set.
While his 8 in the first set could have proved costly, Royals’ Mete Gazoz missed the 10 by the smallest of margins to give Knights the first set.
The second set turned out to be the best of the night as all eight archers were in sensational form but Neeraj’s final X gave it to the Knights 79-78. The Royals showed a hint of a fightback by taking the third set, but the Knights sealed their win with Neeraj anchoring with another 10.
The local franchise also had Jyothi Surekha Vennam in fine form as she shot 78 from her eight arrows.
For Marathas, the strategy since getting off to a slow start has been to attack and they found a new hero on the night in recurve archer Simranjeet Kaur, who shot a sensational 59 out of 60.
With Dhiraj Bommadevara in good form again, Simranjeet’s scores propped up the Marathas even more with compounds Mike Schloesser and Parneet Kaur doing their bit. The Chiefs, who brought back Chikitha Taniparthi into the starting lineup, struggled to get going once again as they lost all three sets.
(PTI News)
