Taiwan's Tang, Li advance to semifinals at Archery World Cup in Mexico

Taipei, April 11 (CNA) Taiwanese archers Tang Chih-chun (湯智鈞) and Li Tsai-chi (李彩綺) advanced to their respective singles semifinals at the Archery World Cup event in Puebla, Mexico, on Friday (all times local).

Tang, competing in the men's recurve, rallied from a 2-4 deficit to defeat China's Wang Yan (王岩) 6-4 in the quarterfinals.

The 25-year-old Taiwanese will next face world No. 9 Mete Gazoz of Turkey on Sunday.

Speaking after the match, team coach Liu Chan-ming (劉展明) said Tang briefly fell behind in the quarterfinal due to shifting winds, but quickly adjusted.

"He is a seasoned competitor and adapted quickly. His form is very smooth, so the scores naturally came back up," Liu said.

Looking ahead to his semifinal competition against Gazoz, a Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, Tang said he was especially excited and hoped to bring out his best performance.

Tang was a silver medalist in the men's team event at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but finished fourth in the men's individual recurve.

Meanwhile, in the women's individual recurve, Li cruised into the semifinals after a 6-0 win over Turkey's Dunya Yenihayat in the quarterfinals.

She will face China's Yu Qi (于茜) next.

The Puebla leg of the Archery World Cup runs from April 7 to 12 and is the opening stop of this year's circuit.

Taiwan has fielded four men and four women in both the recurve and compound divisions.

According to the Chinese Taipei Archery Association, the same eight archers will compete at the Shanghai leg of the World Cup on May 5.

After the competition concludes, three of the team's top athletes will be selected based on accumulated ranking points to represent Taiwan at the Asian Games.