Manavjit Singh Sandhu shot a steady 138 to finish fifth in the men's trap event in the ISSF World Cup shooting in Rome, Italy [Images], on Sunday.

Australian Adam Vella clinched the gold as he kept his nerves through a shoot-out to break a three-way tie for the top spot. China's Xu Hongtao took the silver while Karsten Bindrich of Germany [Images] settled for bronze.

Sandhu, after shooting a steady 118 in the qualifying, slipped in the final round featuring six men and had an ordinary score of 20.

Vella, on the other hand, showed that rare ability to excel under pressure while the rest choked. From being three spots behind Hongtao at the end of preliminary rounds, the Aussie went on to score 23 while the leader surrendered the advantage with a round of 20.

Bindrich was the other marksman who remained cool as cucumber at the crucial stage to shoot a score of 22 and tie the two rivals for an overall score of 141.

In the shoot-out that followed, Vella managed two points, Hongtao one and Bindrich none.

Other Indians in the fray, Zoravar Singh Sandhu and Anwer Sultan, failed to make the final after scores of 115 and 113 respectively.

The Indian trio of Amit Sanghi, Amardeep Singh Rai and Baba Prithviraj Singh Bedi failed to impressed In the skeet event which saw home lad Ennio Falco take the gold with a world record score of 149.

Falco fought a close battle with Vincent Hancock of the US as the two had identical scores of 124 at the end of qualification rounds but the former had a perfect final round of 25 while the American missed one point to settle for silver.

Di Jin of China shot 146 to take the bronze.

Sanghi (111), Rai (105), and Bedi (102) were placed 69th, 98th and 107th respectively.

Among the women shooters, Arti Singh Rao ended up 28th with a score of 57 in the skeet event while Shagun Chowdhary finished 32 after shooting 56 in the traps on Saturday.