Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly ensured India’s streak of winning a World Championships medal in every edition of the prestigious tournament did not end at home. The unseeded pair, formerly ranked in the top 10, produced some of their best badminton to secure a bronze medal. On Saturday, Treesa and Gayatri gave the world No. 1 and defending champions Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning a massive scare, but it remained only a scare as they squandered a game advantage to lose 21-18, 13-21, 8-21 in one hour and 11 minutes.
BWF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS WOMEN’S DOUBLES SF HIGHLIGHTS
It was a match of two halves. In the first, Gayatri and Treesa looked every bit like the No. 1 pair. Buoyed by one of the biggest-ever crowds for a badminton match in India at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi, the world No. 39 pair produced a display of aggression that took the world’s best by surprise.
Treesa, in particular, was playing with single-minded aggression. She was a threat from both the frontcourt and the backcourt, taking every opportunity to put the Chinese pair under pressure. Gayatri remained sharp alongside her, happy to operate from the midcourt and step in whenever an opening presented itself.
At 14-16 in the first game, Treesa threw herself into a spectacular jump smash after Tan and Liu offered a weak lift. She could have settled for a simple tap into the open court, but chose instead to go for the kill. It was the kind of moment that summed up India’s approach — they were not afraid to take the game to the defending champions.
Later in the game, Treesa produced a superb crouching defensive effort, another indication of how much her all-round game has developed. The Indians were not simply attacking blindly; they were defending calmly when they had to, changing the direction of rallies and bringing their frontcourt player into the game whenever possible.
And then came the finish.
From 15-18 down, Gayatri and Treesa reeled off six straight points to take the opening game 21-18. The crowd erupted as the unseeded Indians, backed by an electric home support, stunned the defending champions and moved to within a game of a place in the World Championships final.
They began the second game in much the same manner, matching the Chinese pair’s intensity and refusing to let their aggression drop. But at 12-12, the complexion of the match changed.
Tan and Liu began showing greater patience in attack. Rather than forcing the issue, they stayed in the rallies, kept the shuttle flatter and shorter and waited for opportunities to unleash their smashes. The Indians, meanwhile, became increasingly passive in defence and were not stepping forward quickly enough to put pressure back on the Chinese pair.
The unforced errors began to creep in. What had looked like fearless badminton in the opening game suddenly became tentative. The finish line, which had appeared tantalisingly close, perhaps brought its own pressure.
Tan and Liu sensed the opening and did not let it go. They reeled off eight straight points, turning a 12-12 game into a one-sided finish. The noise that had accompanied every Indian winner fell away as the defending champions took the second game 21-13.
The third game was over almost as quickly as the Indians had lost control of the second. Gayatri and Treesa could not break the momentum Tan and Liu had built, and the single-minded aggression that had defined their opening-game performance was no longer there.
The Chinese pair kept asking questions, changing the pace and making the Indians work for every attacking opportunity. This time, Gayatri and Treesa did not have the answers.
The defeat will sting, particularly after holding a game advantage against the world’s best pair. But the bigger picture remains significant. Gayatri and Treesa arrived at these World Championships as an unseeded pair and leave with a bronze medal, extending India’s remarkable medal streak at the event.
For a pair that had to fight their way back into the top 10 and then take down some of the world’s best on their run to the semi-finals, this was another reminder of how far they have come. On a night when they briefly made the defending champions look ordinary, Gayatri and Treesa showed they belong on this stage.
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