Dismal show by Indian shooters on opening day of ISSF World Cup

Ningbo (China), Sep 9 (PTI) India's campaign in the ISSF World Cup was off to a disappointing start with the 10m air pistol and rifle mixed teams failing to reach the finals here on Tuesday.

The two Indian pairs in 10m air pistol mixed team event finished 11th and 13th respectively in the qualification, while in 10m air rifle rifle mixed team section, the country's combinations finished 14th and 34th.

The pair of Surbhi Rao and young Amit Sharma, competing in his third World Cup, ended up 11th with an aggregate qualification round score of 594.

Surbhi shot 284 while Sharma scored 290 as the pair missed the four-par final by a huge margin.

China, with a combined score of 585, topped the qualification and went on to win the gold by defeating Czech Republic 17-5 in the gold-medal match.

The other Indian pair of Olympian Rhythm Sangwan and Nishant Rawat finished 13th in the 21-team field, aggregating 571.

Rhythm shot 299 while 23-year-old Rawat, competing in only his second World Cup, managed 282 after two poor series of 91 and 92, followed by 99.

In 10m air rifle, the pair of Asian Games individual bronze medallist Ramita Jindal and Maddineni Umamahesh aggregated 628.6 to finish 14th. Ramita shot 312.9, while Umamahesh managed 315.7 as the pair missed the qualification by more than eight points.

The Chinese pair of Peng Xinlu (318.5) and double Olympic gold medallist Sheng Lihao (318.4) aggregated a world record score of 636.9 to top the qualification round.

The other Indian pair of Olympian Divyansh Singh Panwar (309.3) and Meghana Sajjanar (312.8) aggregated 622.1 to finish 34th in a 36-team field.

India have named a 24-member team comprising shooters ranked primarily between four to six in the national rankings for the year's final World Cup stage. PTI AM AM PDS PDS