Shooting: Jitu Rai, Pooja Ghatkar falter in qualifying rounds at ISSF World Cup Final

Jitu Rai finished ninth in the qualifying round of the men's 10m air pistol event

New Delhi, October 26: India experienced a disappointing day at the ISSF World Cup Final as both their representatives, ace pistol shooter Jitu Rai and air rifle specialist Pooja Ghatkar, failed to clear the qualification hurdle here on Thursday (October 26).

Rai, fresh from his gold medal in the air pistol mixed event along with Heena Sidhu, could not make the final of the men's 10m air pistol and was placed ninth. The top eight make the cut.

Rai shot a sequence of 94, 96, 96, 97, 95, 94 for a total of 572. He shot 95 in the penultimate 10-shot series and eventually dropped to 94 to bow out of the competition at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range. Eventual gold medal winner Matsuda Tomoyuki of Japan, who qualified eighth, aggregated 573 in the qualification, while Vietnamese Cuong Quoc Tran topped it with 586 but fell behind in the final.

In women's 10m air rifle, Ghatkar finished ninth and failed to make the final. Ghatkar's series included scores of 101.5, 103.9, 102.2 and an improved 104.8 for a total of 412.4. The lowest qualifying score was 412.5 set by Norway's Malin Westerheim.

Ghatkar had opened India's medal tally in the World Cup Stage 1 earlier in the year by winning a bronze in the same event. In the final, Andrea Arsovic of Serbia won the gold with a score of 251.3, Romanian Georgeta-Laura Coman clinched silver with 249.7, while Xinyi Peng of China bagged the bronze after shooting 228.5.

Earlier, in the men's 10m air pistol event, experienced Japanese pistol shooter Matsuda added another gold medal to the one he won at the very same range a few months ago. Matsuda, a former ISSF world champion in this event, shot two remarkable series midway through the final, adding a 10.5 -10.9 combination in the sixth series to the 10.5-10.7 he scored in the previous one.

With his score, Matsuda also set a new world record, bettering the one set by Germany's Christian Reitz at the 2017 European Championship in Maribor. Alongside Matsuda on the podium was Ukrainian sensation Pavlo Korostylov, competing in his second World Cup Final at the age of 19. He won the silver with 241.1 and a junior world record to boot.

Despite a remarkable second half of the match, Korostylov was not able to match Matuda's pace. His more experienced Ukrainian teammate Oleh Omelchuk, completed the 10m air pistol men podium, taking bronze medal with 218.8 points, adding it to the World Cup Final gold he won in Bangkok in 2008 and to the bronze he won in Munich in 2013.