Badminton WC: They are young; they will continue to play for a while, says coach Gopichand on Treesa-Gayatri

New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) Chief coach Pullela Gopichand believes Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s historic World Championships bronze can provide a major boost to India’s next generation, while insisting the young women’s doubles pair still have plenty of success ahead of them.

“I think both of them are young; it’s not like this is the only performance they’ve had. They’ve been a top 10 pair; they had two All England semifinals; they have a Commonwealth medal and two Asian championships. So overall, they’ve done well over the last few years, but they are young, so they will continue to play for a while,” Gopichand told IANS.

“So in that sense, yes. But as far as the larger ecosystem is concerned, I’m sure this will be a confidence booster for the other younger players as well, to get us good performances in the future,” he added.

The fairytale campaign of Treesa and Gayatri at the World Championships came to an end when they lost to the defending champions and top seeds Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning from China, 21 to 18, 13 to 21, 8 to 21, in the semifinal on Friday.

Even though they had lost, the Indian pair still secured a historic bronze medal—India’s first women’s doubles World Championships medal in 15 years, since Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won bronze in 2011.

The achievement was especially impressive considering the injuries that had disturbed the preparation of Treesa and Gayatri; Treesa’s ankle injury at the beginning of the year had kept her out of competition for three months, and so the two had lost a good deal of momentum before the home World Championships.

They achieved one of the most significant results of the tournament by beating the fourth-seeded pair Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in the quarterfinals and thus securing a medal. It was Gopichand who attributed their consistency and the whole support team for having helped them to launch such a strong campaign even though they had no tournament experience.

“I think there’s no secret to it, in the sense you just need to go out there and put in consistent work,” he said. “Yes, both of them have really worked hard. The entire team behind them, whether it’s the strength and conditioning or the physio team. I think Sumit, who was there, I think overall everybody has helped them and basically at the end of the day, they worked hard.”

The chief coach also praised the pair for handling the pressure of playing on the biggest stage, particularly during the tight moments of their knockout matches.

“And more importantly, when you get to a stage like this, when there are people, when there is pressure, you go out there and give it your best shot. And that’s what they’ve done. And to pull out those matches, when it’s 13-all, 14-all, when you’re a game down, to pull them needs some amount of strength,” Gopichand said.

The head coach also commended the two for the way they coped with the pressure of playing on such a major stage, especially in the crucial moments of their knockout games. “Typically what happens is when people haven’t played a few tournaments, they take time to get back. But that was not the case. They went in directly, and from the first match, they looked very sharp,” he said.

“Well, I think Sindhu was close to winning that; Unnathy was close to winning that. And then Ayush had a fantastic first round. I thought he could have pulled out that match as well,” he said.

“Although we’ve lost and probably we didn’t have anybody at the quarter-stage, I do believe that this performance could have been better with a little bit of luck in that sense.”

“But not too worried. I’m sure at the Asian Games, we’ll have some better results,” Gopichand added.

–IANS

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