Bombayla Devi bows out in pre-quarters, loses to Mexican Aida

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The disappointing show by Indian archers continued as Laishram Bombayla Devi bowed out in the pre-quarterfinals of the women's individual recurve event losing 2-6 to Mexico's Roman Aida at the Lord's ground here on Monday.

This was after Bombayla won her first round encounter against Evangelia Psarra of Greece 6-4.

In individual events, which is decided on best of five sets (three arrows each), one who wins a set irrespective of the margin gets two points.

The target score in the pre-quarterfinal match against Aida was 107-93 in favour of the Mexican. Bombayla missed the target altogether as she got a zero in the fourth set which turned out to be the decider.

It wasn't that the Mexican archer was in great form but more due to Bombayla's inconsistent performance. After hitting five 10s in his first round encounter, Bombayla could only log 10 on two occasion compared to four times by her opponent.

Aida set the tone with a 30 in the first set along with 26 and 27 in the two other sets, that she won.

This was the only event the 29-year-old Bindra was taking part, thereby cutting short his campaign in the ongoing Games, but he insisted he has no plans to retire.

"It has been a nice journey for me and I have worked hard for this, but unfortunately, I could not make it to the finals," he added.

Narang, on the other hand, was bang on target from the beginning, scoring two successive 100s, but a 98 in the third series somewhat let down the quadruple gold medal winner at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The 29-year-old Hyderabadi, however, kept his cool and fought his way back into the reckoning for the medal round with a perfect 100 in the fourth series and then clinched the spot as the third best performer by notching two more 100s in his last two rounds.

There was another setback for the country's sagging hopes in the archery competition when L Bambayla Devi was ousted from the women's individual event at the pre-quarterfinal stage by Roman Aida of Mexico 6-2.

Bambayla had raised slim visions of a medal when she performed superbly to enter the last 16 by despatching first round rival Evangelia Psarra of Greece easily with a 6-4 margin.

India begin their campaign in men's hockey later today while tennis players would also be seen in action at Wimbledon after their doubles matches got postponed due to rains yesterday.

Also seen in action would be major medal hope in badminton, Saina Nehwal, who would be playing her second group match, and light heavy (81kg) boxer Sumit Sangwan.