The top men’s seeds, Matteo Borsani and defending champion Florian Unruh also shot an exhibition match, won by Borsani 95-91 – the Italian producing the highest score on the board all day.
Unruh will face fourth seed Patrick Huston, the bronze medallist at the Yankton 2022 World Field Championships, who saw off Australia’s Ryan Tyack 88-85 despite a slight wobble on the sixth and last target.
Borsnai will face the Netherlands’ Willem Bakker, who only just squeaked through against the most surprising competitor of the day, the 16-year-old Cui Jingxuan of China, who first gave the home crowd something to make noise about with a win over Belgium’s Jelle Daman.
Cui was two points ahead of Bakker on called score after the sixth target, but upgrades and downgrades and a recheck by the judges saw the Dutchman eventually pip him by a single point.
“It feels weird.” said Bakker, on the confusion over scores. “I still won but I don’t feel like I did.”
“I have a lot of respect and empathy for the Chinese athlete. I know the win was fair, but I also understand how tough it must feel on his side. We had a great time together during the unmarked round, and I consider him a friend. I hope he can walk away from this with his head high, knowing he’s a great archer and competitor.”
The recurve competition concludes tomorrow with the recurve finals, followed by the barebow competition beginning Thursday.
You can watch extended coverage from Chengdu with a subscription to archery+.
