Chola Chiefs beat Kakatiya Knights 6-2 for first Archery Premier League win

Chola Chiefs registered their first Archery Premier League Season 2 victory, defeating Kakatiya Knights 6-2. Colombia’s Alejandra Usquiano impressed on debut with eight perfect 10s, while Deepika Kumari and Marcus D’Almeida helped the Chiefs seal the decisive fourth set

Hyderabad: Using their compound archers to apply pressure at the start of each set, Chola Chiefs defeated Kakatiya Knights 6-2 to register their first win of Archery Premier League Season 2 here on Friday.

Colombia’s Alejandra Usquiano, making her APL debut, was in sensational form for the Chiefs, shooting all eight of her arrows for 10s as the team’s tactical tweak paid off against Nico Wiener’s Knights.

---

The result left both teams with one win and one defeat each after two matches.

In the first set, the Chiefs’ tactic was evident from the start. They deployed their two compound archers, Rishabh Yadav and Usquiano, to shoot both their arrows in the first half, helping the team open the match with a perfect score of 40. This put the Knights under scoreboard pressure, while they stuck to their usual routine of alternating between two compound archers and two recurve archers.

In the second set, the Chiefs’ compound archers again scored a perfect 40. For the Knights, Neeraj Chauhan had barely enough time to release his final arrow and managed only a 5. The Chiefs posted a total of 76 in the set to take a 4-0 lead.

The Knights had fought back from 0-4 down against the Mighty Marathas on Day 1, and it looked as though they could repeat the feat when they won the third set.

Neeraj made up for his earlier lapse with a superb 10 on his eighth arrow. This time, however, Marcus D’Almeida managed only a 3 for the Chiefs, when a 9 would have secured the match for them. The Knights took the set 76-70.

The fourth set, however, was sensational for the Chola Chiefs, who scored 79 out of 80. While the compound archers continued to fire on all cylinders, recurve stars Deepika Kumari and D’Almeida also showed their class to clinch the set 79-76 and seal a 6-2 victory.

The league is being broadcast on Sony LIV, Doordarshan, the Archery Association of India’s YouTube channel and Archery+. Tickets are available on District by Zomato.