Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand fall short of final, settle for World Championships bronze | Badminton News
New Delhi: For one glorious game, it seemed like Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand were about to write the biggest fairytale of the BWF World Championships. In the end, they had to settle for something almost as precious, a bronze medal earned in front of a home crowd that never stopped believing.The unseeded Indian pair’s extraordinary run came to an end on Saturday as they lost 21-18, 13-21, 8-21 to world No. 1 and defending champions Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in an hour and 11 minutes at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.Even though Treesa and Gayatri could not complete the heist, amid the sweat and heartbreak, they walked off the court with something historic: a maiden World Championship medal, ending a 15-year drought in Indian women’s doubles that dated back to Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa’s bronze in London in 2011.It felt, at times, like the crowd wanted this more than anyone. The stands were choc-a-bloc, a wall of noise that rose and fell with every rally, and for a while, it seemed to be lifting Treesa and Gayatri to somewhere they had never been before.They came out believing it too. Against a Chinese pair they had beaten just once in seven previous meetings, the Indians raced into a 7-2 lead, catching Liu and Tan cold.The world No. 1 duo clawed back, as champions do, reeling off 10 straight points to move ahead at the interval.But Treesa-Gayatri kept finding answers, a cross-court winner here, a jump smash there, a crouching defensive return that had no right to come back, dragging the game level again and again until, at 20-18, two game points arrived. The Indians held their nerve. The opening game was theirs, and the packed arena went into absolute delirium.At this point in the Treesa-Gayatri story, one hoped the fairytale would keep going. It did not. The Chinese pair, top seeds and defending champions for a reason, simply raised their game when it mattered most.Regrouping with clinical poise, Liu and Tan varied the pace and peppered the backline with relentless precision. A gruelling 49-shot rally in the second game highlighted the sheer physical demands of the contest, but minor errors began creeping into the Indian pair’s game. The Chinese capitalised ruthlessly, taking the second game 21-13 to enforce a decider.In the final game, the physical toll became apparent. The Indian duo showed heart, grinding out a sensational 56-shot marathon to level at 2-2, but the Chinese pair shifted into another gear. Smothering the court with suffocating attacking angles and targeted body smashes, Liu and Tan surged to an 11-5 interval cushion and never took their foot off the pedal, wrapping up the contest 21-8.When the final point landed, disappointment gave way to pride. Treesa and Gayatri exchanged an embrace at the net, exhausted but heads held high.For Treesa and Gayatri, the medal brought a profound emotional weight. The duo navigated the hard yards of a comeback trail, piecing their campaign back together after Treesa spent months sidelined recovering from a severe ankle injury. Rebuilding match sharpness, rediscovering their on-court chemistry and trusting their bodies had been a quiet, arduous grind.But in front of a home crowd that sang, shouted and believed with them, they showed that the best chapters of this partnership may lie ahead.
