Half of Australia’s archery team have shot into the top 10 of the Commonwealth Games competition, following the preliminary ranking round.
All archers fired off 72 arrows each at the Yamuna Sports Complex in east Delhi on Monday to determine the matchups for the opening sudden-death round.
Dual Olympian Deonne Bridger led the charge, ranking fourth in the traditional recurve bow event, while 21-year-old Lexie Feeney was not far behind her in eighth.
Using the more high-tech compound bow, Fiona Hyde snared sixth spot, and in the men’s equivalent Pat Coughlan took ninth with his score of 698 out of a possible 720, pipping compatriot Robert Timms, tenth, by just one point.
Mathew Masonwells, 24, was Australia’s best male recurve performer, the carpenter by day ranking ninth as well.
The Queenslander took up the sport as a 13-year-old, when his father made him a timber bow to take to a medieval fair and he couldn’t resist continuing to use it at his grandparents’ farm.
Now in the midst of his biggest year on the elite archery scene, Masonwells said he was fairly pleased with how far he’d come at the Games already.
‘‘It was pretty good but there was a few nuffy shots in there, always room for improvement,’’ he said.
‘‘Hopefully I can come back tomorrow and do better.’’
While nerves often leave far more experienced archers in a tizz, Masonwells keeps his focus with the help of noise-cancelling headphones and tunes by the likes of Aussie hip-hop group the Hilltop Hoods.
‘‘Every now and again I’ll come back (between arrows) and pop them on just to zone out, so it’s just my memory, music and that’s it,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, 38-year-old Bridger, from WA, wasn’t very worried about the few stray arrows she fired off either.
‘‘I always get a bit nervous, it doesn’t matter what event it is,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s crazy because you’d think I wouldn’t at all, but mainly it was a good day, I was pretty happy with it.’’
In the teams events, the Australian men are ranked fifth in the recurve and fourth in the compound, while the women are third in the recurve and fourth in the compound.
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