Treesa-Gayatri upset Chinese fourth seeds to ensure medal for India
India’s Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand kept alive India’s streak of winning at least one medal at each edition of the BWF World Championships since 2011 as they upset fourth seeds Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian of China to reach the women’s doubles semifinals at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here on Friday.
Treesa and Gayatri came back from a game down to beat Jia and Zhang 16-21, 21-15, 21-13 in the quarterfinals and become only the second Indian women’s doubles combination to win a World Championships medal. Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were the first Indian combination to achieve this feat when they clinched the bronze in London 15 years ago which kickstarted India’s run of medals.
For that streak to continue, India needed at least one of their doubles pairing to fire on all cylinders and Treesa-Gayatri raised the bar when it mattered against a pairing which had beaten them thrice before in three meetings.
The Indians did not have the best of the starts as they trailed 0-6 and 2-8 in the opening game but they began to assert themselves with an aggressive game plan. They won six straight points to close the gap at 8-9 but the Chinese kept nudging ahead and closed out the game.
The start of the second game also took a similar trajectory as the Chinese pair opened up a 10-7 lead. But Treesa and Gayatri once again stepped up with both creating openings from the net and then finishing with the cross court smashes.
With the momentum shifting, the Indians went on an all-attacking game plan and won eight straight points to take 9-4 lead and never looked back from there on. They could not hold back their tears after Jia send her lift wide to assure the home favourites a medal.
“The match was very difficult and hence the emotions. We are still processing the result and really happy that we converted the match. We don’t want to stop here, we have come here with a goal and looking forward. The crowd was amazing today and pushed us towards the win,” said Gayatri and Treesa, who also had India’s Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Badminton Association of India President Himanta Biswa Sarma in the stands to cheer them on.
Treesa-Gayatri will take on top seeds Liu Sheng Shu-Tan Ning in the semifinal on Saturday.
Later in the day, the men’s doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will be in action against China’s third seeds Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang as they chase their third World Championships medal.
Earlier in the day, former world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan gave a walkover to Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong in her women’s singles quarterfinals citing a knee injury.
