Hyderabad, Oct 17 (PTI) Kakatiya Knights capped off a memorable round-robin campaign at home with a thumping 6-0 win over Mighty Marathas in the Archery Premier League here on Saturday.
Both teams were already assured of a place in the top two coming into the match, making the game a dress rehearsal for their clash in the first qualifier on Sunday.
For Knights, their lead compound archers Nico Wiener and Jyothi Surekha Vennam were flawless during the match, shooting 60 out of 60 despite gusty conditions.
Marathas, who opted to rest their recurve star Dhiraj Bommadevara at the start, never quite found their rhythm and registered sub-70 scores in the first two sets.
They managed to improve in the third set to score 74 as Dhiraj and Alejandra Valencia came on, but Knights hit a superb 78 and brought out the celebrations. Knights had also rested their in-form recurve star Neeraj Chauhan.
The win augurs well for them on Sunday, when they face Marathas again to decide who the first finalist will be.
The world’s first franchise-based archery league, APL is initiated by the Archery Association of India and comprises six teams and a total of 48 archers, with 36 Indians and 12 elite international stars.
Juan Carlos Holgado, 1992 Olympic gold medallist for Spain and World Archery Executive Director, acknowledged AAI’s efforts in making this league a success.
“There are not many federations that have the power, the muscle, the financial resources to put this in place,” Holgado said. “World Archery is happy to support this. Hopefully, some of the countries take a similar model, but I don’t see this happening in the short term.
“I’m sure that other countries, Korea, for example, United States, are watching what is happening and start thinking what we could do in our events to make it more interesting for spectators,” he said. PTI BS AM
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