Silent result is everything: Treesa-Gayatri let World Championships bronze do talking
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand on Sunday said the best response to their critics was to let their performance do the talking, and the Indian women’s doubles pair could hardly have scripted a better answer as they capped an “amazing” week with a maiden World Championships bronze.
The unseeded Indians signed off with a medal after going down to world No. 1 and defending champions Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning of China in the semifinals on Saturday. “I think the silent result is everything that we can give rather than just telling people where you are, who you are. That is something that we cannot do. At least, what we can show is in our result. I think eventually we did that,” Treesa told reporters on Sunday.
Treesa had only recently returned from an ankle injury sustained in April that kept her sidelined for a few months, leaving little expectation around the pair as the spotlight fell largely on PV Sindhu, Ayush Shetty and the men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. “A lot of negativity, everything will come. But at that time, if you take it in your mind, it’s not like you are being in the present moment. We both are here to do something big. And we need to just show that we are here to do something. Actually, we did that,” Treesa said. For Gayatri, the breakthrough medal capped an emotional and eventful week.
“It’s been a great week, very emotional, eventful. We’re super happy with the bronze medal,” she said.
“We’ll cherish this medal forever. We were just so happy after the quarterfinal match and even in the semifinal, we gave our 100 per cent and it just wasn’t our day. But we will cherish this moment forever.” Asked how they celebrated their historic achievement, the pair revealed they had ice creams, although they had no plans to get a tattoo of the medal.
Ranked 39th in the world, Treesa and Gayatri defeated three seeded pairs en route to the semifinals, ending India’s 15-year wait for a women’s doubles medal at the World Championships since Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won bronze in 2011. Having now beaten several top-level Chinese pairs, Treesa said the key was to avoid handing their opponents easy points and maintain their composure at crucial stages.
“I think those kinds of players, if you lose two points, then they will actually take charge and they will actually continue the momentum. So, we just need to break those barriers,” she said.
“I feel like we’re kind of giving them easy points. When it’s 15-all or 16-all, you cannot give those kinds of easy points rather than giving them in the first two strokes.
“Otherwise, you need to make them work to actually end the points. But yesterday (Saturday) also when we played, that’s what happened. I think Tan started to just do flick serves, that really affected us in a different way. We were kind of struggling to receive and at that point the rhythm actually went off.”
Despite their 1-7 head-to-head record against Liu and Tan, Treesa believes it is only a matter of time before they break through against the world’s top-ranked pair.
“100 per cent. It’s not really good when you are losing with them. It doesn’t feel amazing or anything like that. I think, obviously, it’s a matter of time,” she said.
“It’s like you can win against them. Whenever we played against them, it’s always a decider. And that really kind of gives us that confidence, like playing against the world No. 1. It’s just a matter of time and just believing in yourself that actually you can beat those players.”
