Treesa-Gayatri stun world No. 4 Chinese pair, assure India of World Championships medal
India's Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand assured the country of at least a bronze medal at the World Championships after stunning world No. 4 Chinese pair Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in the quarterfinals on Friday.
The Indian duo fought back from a game down to beat the Chinese pair 16-21 21-15 21-13 and book their place in the semifinals, marking one of the biggest wins of their partnership.
Doubles coach B Sumeeth Reddy, who has closely followed their journey through injuries, poor form and a fall in rankings, said the achievement carried special significance for both players.
"When emotions fall in, no words could normalise things. They're still very emotional. It takes probably a day for things to digest," Reddy told reporters.
Reddy said Gayatri, who is chief coach Pullela Gopichand's daughter, had faced her own share of expectations, while Treesa had always wanted to establish herself as one of India's leading badminton players.
"Both of them have their own baggage, starting with Gaya (Gayatri) being Gopi sir's daughter. Everyone would say silver spoon and all of that. With this, she would also be relieved that she's a World Championships medallist. That would be a huge medal in her career.
"Treesa has also been very hungry since the start of her career. She wanted to prove a point that she's not playing tournaments just to compete. She always wanted to be the star of Indian badminton. This again is a big achievement in her kitty. That was one of the reasons why she was very emotional."
The pair's contrasting styles have been an important part of their success. While Treesa brings aggression and intensity to the court, Gayatri is known for her calm approach.
"We have two different players, Treesa being the player who's always charging at the opponents while Gayatri being the calm one. You need to deal with them differently," Reddy said.
"We obviously encourage Treesa to just calm a little bit when she is becoming too aggressive or smashing too often. At the same time, we need to encourage Gaya to be a little bit aggressive," he added.
The Indians have also improved their court rotation, with both players increasingly sharing responsibilities instead of sticking to fixed front- and back-court roles.
"Since the last 30-40 days, the rotation has gotten better. If you remember, most of them would say that Treesa would always stay back and Gaya, but I think this tournament, that's not the case. Both of them shared their load equally," said Reddy, who represented India at the Olympics alongside Manu Attri.
The medal comes after a difficult phase for the pair. Treesa suffered an ankle injury during training ahead of the Asia Badminton Championships and Uber Cup after accidentally stepping on Gayatri's foot. An MRI later revealed two high-grade muscle tears and two ligament tears.
The duo returned to competition at the Indonesia Open, competed at the US Open and then won the Philippine International Challenge earlier this month.
"Obviously, she (Treesa) was very low, even Gaya was very low, but from day one, rather than thinking about why it happened, they were focusing on what needs to be done better," Reddy said.
"Treesa used to focus more on her stroke and improve her confidence and Gaya started on the first day with her fitness. And you can see, today they were good enough to play another 20 minutes after the match as well. So I think they focused on that."
Reddy also credited the coaching and support staff for helping the pair rebuild their fitness and improve the quality of their strokes.
"There was a lot of focus on the physicality. Huge credit to the trainers as well. Not just the physical part, I think with the quality of the stroke, physically you need not move so much if the quality of the stroke is really good, then the opponent is struggling..."
