The fancied men's recurve trio of Olympian Tarundeep Rai, Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee finished 10th in the qualification round to set up a clash with China in a tough first round battle at the Archery World Championship in Turin, Italy on Tuesday.
The Indians need to get past the first round hurdle on Wednesday so as to earn quota place for the 2012 London Olympics.
The Indian trio managed a mediocre tally of 3939 points for a poor 10th place that put them against China (3982) who were seventh. It was a poor outing for the trio as senior-most pro Rai slipped to 62nd place with a score of 1296.
Banerjee was at his worst, totalling a pathetic 1289 for a 72nd place finish.
It was Talukdar who logged 1354 to hand India a fifth place finish.
The Guwahati archer, in fact, shot 343/360 in the 70m distance to take the pole position but he slipped to settle for a fifth place.
On Monday, the women's trio of Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro finished a creditable fourth to draw against France in their last eight fixture.
