Archery Premier League: Kakatiya Knights stun Mighty Marathas after comeback

Kakatiya Knights stunned Mighty Marathas in a dramatic comeback on the opening night of Archery Premier League Season 2 in Hyderabad. Defending champions Rajputana Royals and Chero Archers also began their campaigns with regulation-time victories over Prithviraaj Yodhas and Chola Chiefs.

Hyderabad: Kakatiya Knights pulled off a remarkable comeback after a poor start as they stunned Mighty Marathas on the opening night of Archery Premier League Season 2 here on Wednesday. On either side of the Knights’ comeback win, defending champions Rajputana Royals and Chero Archers registered wins in regulation time against Prithviraaj Yodhas and Chola Chiefs respectively as the second season got underway at the People’s Plaza on Necklace Road.

In the second match, Marathas suffered a remarkable collapse after opening their match by winning the first two sets, before losing the next two and then missing out in the shootoff against Kakatiya Knights. Nico Wiener and Neeraj Chauhan nailed the inner X-ring on the target face in the hit-or-miss shootout for Knights after the Marathas let slip a 4-0 advantage. Marathas paid the price for substituting their main recurve man, Dhiraj Bommadevara, after the first two sets. Bommadevara, the Archery World Cup Final champion, was in tremendous form, shooting three 10s and a 9 with his four arrows, before the Marathas brought on Mrinal Chauhan, who struggled right through as Knights bounced back.

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In the first match of the evening, Rajputana Royals laid down the marker early on in Archery Premier League’s second edition too as they beat Prithviraaj Yodhas 5-3 in a repeat of first season’s final.

With compound archers Ojas Deotale and world No 1 Ella Gibson leading the way with high-scoring arrows at the start, Royals also had Tokyo Olympic recurve champion Mete Gazoz to thank, as he repeatedly closed out the sets with the 120-second countdown winding down. The Abhishek Verma-led Yodhas bounced back from a slow start and could have taken the match into a hit-or-miss shootoff with the final arrow too, but Mexico’s Mathias Grande shot a costly 8 in the end.

In the third match Chero Archers prevailed 5-3 against Chola Chiefs. The Archers took the first set but Chiefs fought back to level the match at 2-2. Their star recurve archers – Marcus D’Almeida and Atanus Das – both shot 7s with the final arrows of the set. But Chiefs had done enough earlier to take a low-scoring set 71-70. In the third set Archers shot superb 79 out of 80 and the Chiefs’ set was done even before the last arrow as they took a 4-2 lead in the match. In the final set, Chikitha Taniparthi and Rajat Chauhan couldn’t apply the early pressure on Archers as they dropped a couple of 9s. Archers, on the other hand, saw their compounds give the perfect start to their side. A 7 from Casey Kaufhold with the penultimate arrow made it tricky but it didn’t matter in the end.

Marathas’ star Dhiraj, despite his cameo appearance in the match, was adjudged the best recurve archer of the day, while Royals’ Bhakat was the best female archer of the day. Among the compounds, Knights’ leader Wiener clinched the award after his stunning performance during the comeback victory, and Becerra walked away with the prize for female archer of the evening.

The league is being broadcast on Sony LIV, Doordarshan, and World Archery TV, and tickets are available on District by Zomato.