Sahil Jadhav and Jyothi Surekha Finish Top 10 in Qualification at Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya

Tuesday in Antalya started well enough for India's compound archers at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Turkey, with both Sahil Jadhav and Jyothi Surekha Vennam finishing inside the top ten during qualification, and then the individual knockout rounds arrived and gave the day a slightly different flavour by the time the results were all in.

Sahil had come into this tournament carrying the confidence of his first ever World Cup medal from Shanghai last month, and the qualification round showed that form was still there he shot 710 points and finished 10th in the men's compound standings after seven other archers hit the exact same score and the tiebreaker came down to X-count, which is about as close as qualification gets without actually being tied on everything.

The round of 64 was where the day went wrong, and it went wrong by the smallest possible margin two points, 145 against Mexico's Juan Gutierrez who shot 147, and Sahil was heading home from the individual event before it had properly started, while Austria's Nico Wiener sat at the top of the men's standings on 714 points.

Rishabh Yadav came in at 22nd with 706 points among the other Indian men, while Ganesh Mani Ratnam Thirumuru and Kushal Dalal, both already named in India's Asian Games 2026 squad, finished 33rd and 43rd respectively through the qualification stage.

Jyothi Surekha Vennam had the better individual day, shooting 700 points to sit seventh overall in the women's compound qualification rankings and leading the Indian women's group ahead of Chikitha Taniparthi in 10th, Parneet Kaur in 18th on 693 points, and teenager Prithika Pradeep coming in 22nd.

India's team selection for the World Cup circuit is being run with the Asian Games 2026 in mind, which means Jyothi, Chikitha and Prithika form the women's team regardless of the individual scores, and that combination came out of qualification with the second seed behind Mexico and a straight path into the quarterfinals against either Italy or the United States.

The men's compound team grabbed the third seed and faces Singapore in their opener, while Sahil and Jyothi paired up for the mixed team event and earned India the fifth seed along with a first-round bye into the pre-quarterfinals.

Sportscape feels that the losing by two points in a knockout round is the kind of result that archery throws up regularly because the margins at this level are genuinely that small, and Sahil's exit from the individual event in Antalya does not change the bigger picture for Indian compound archery, which is being managed with clear Asian Games 2026 targets in mind rather than chasing individual results at every World Cup stop along the way and that kind of focused preparation tends to show up when the medals that actually matter are handed out.