The Indian trio of L Bombayla Devi, Dola Banerjee and Pranitha Vardhineni did enough to ensure that the women's team, courtesy a sixth place finish in the ranking rounds, got a bye in the first round of the Olympic archery event on Saturday.
Bombayla (637), Dola (633) and Pranitha (627) placed 22nd, 31st and 37th respectively in the ranking round and their aggregated tally of 1897 helped India finish among the top six teams, which got a bye.
The team will take on hosts China (1916), who finished third, straight in the quarter-finals.
In the individual section on Tuesday, in-form Bombayla will face lowly Iwona Marcinkiewicz of Poland, who finished 43rd with a score of 620, while the experienced Dola takes on Marie-Pier Beaudet (628) of Canada, who finished 34th.
The youngest of the lot, Pranitha, will have a tough task to get past Australian Jane Waller, who scored 634 on Saturday to finish 28th.
Team manager K S Kang was naturally elated with the way things panned out for the archers and said the camp is quite upbeat after the opening day's performance.
"It was a quality show by the archers. Though Olympic is a different ball game altogether, we are happy with them," he said.
He heaped praise on Pranitha for not getting overwhelmed by the occasion and putting up a decent show.
"It was amazing to see a greenhorn like her rising to the occasion," he said.
Kang, however, admitted that lot would depend on how the seniors respond to the challenge on Tuesday.
"I expect both Bombayla and Dola to live up to expectations. Bombayla has been consistent, while Dola has just regained her confidence and can be unbeatable on her day. Besides, Dola brings in a lot of experience to the side and this augurs well for the team," he added.
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