- By Namrata Vijay
- Sun, 07 Dec 2025 07:45 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
India’s star women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand had defended their title at the Syed Modi International Super 300 tournament last week. They had beaten Japan’s Kaho Osawa and Mai Tanabe in a closely fought summit clash in Lucknow.
The star duo had played aggressively. They made a brilliant comeback after losing the first game to their opponents, Osawa and Tanabe. Treesa and Gayatri defeated them by 17-21, 21-13, and 21-15. This nail-biting thriller went for about one hour and 16 minutes.
This was the Indian duo’s second tournament as Gayatri made a comeback to competitive badminton after a long injury layoff.
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In an exclusive chat with the Daily Jagran, both Treesa and Gayatri talked about how they have bonded both on and off the court over the last few years, their comeback journey from injury layoffs, and more.
Excerpts:
Q. You’ve been playing together since 2021. How has your partnership evolved on and off the court?
Gayatri: Yeah, I think it's been great. Even talking about on court, I feel like we've developed a good understanding of strengths and rotations on court, and I feel like we know when she's going to take charge, and Trisha knows when I'm going to move in, and also, I think it's been great and off court as well. We've been discussing anything that's happening on the court. So yeah, it's been great.
Q. You narrowly missed out on Paris, but time is on your side. What did you take away from your first Olympic cycle?
Gayatri: I think losing time to injuries is always tough. But yeah, I think I don't really keep that in mind anymore. I feel like we're looking towards LA 2028, and I think we've got plenty of time to work on that, and there's a lot of highs and lows. So, I feel like rehab, just doing my rehab, you know, strength work, you know, just patience and trusting our support systems, is what I think is important.
Q. Women's doubles is arguably the toughest among the five categories. The rallies can go up to 100-150 shots. How difficult is it to manage fitness?
Gayatri: I think it's definitely challenging, especially playing against, you know, the Japanese, Koreans, and all, because they love playing the rally game. And you know, if we're playing against them, we need to be prepared to play at least an hour. So we try to even while training, we try to focus on, you know, endurance, but focusing on our strengths as well, which is attack.
Q. You’ve had close battles with World No.1s Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning, even though you led 6-1. What makes this matchup so compelling?
Gayatri: So I think we're really prepared when it comes to playing against these pairs. I think the first time we played against them, we won, and then we lost to them multiple times. And yeah, I think it's definitely challenging. Talking about them as a pair, they're really strong. They have a different game style compared to the other women's doubles pairs. I think it's more like men's doubles when we're playing against them. I think it's definitely not easy to play against these pairs, a little bit more strategy and stuff, because they're world number ones, and I feel like playing against them, we need to think about playing 100% or even more.
Q. Which areas need improvement to beat top pairs such as Liu Tan?
Gayatri: I think the overall game, you know, just getting better 1% each day would help a lot, you know, whether it's attacking, endurance, you know, the net play. So I think everything together you would need.
Q. In January (when they were ranked World No.9), not only did you break into the top 10, but you went past the all-time highest ranking for an Indian women’s doubles pair, which earlier belonged to Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa, who were World No.10 at one point. So what's your take on this achievement?
Treesa: We are really happy that we have broken into top 9 and this is such a confidence booster to improve our rankings more and when you see the rankings, you’ll see the kind of tournaments that we are playing and that’s gives us more confidence to play well and training for that kind of matches encourages us to improve our rankings more and give our 100 percent.
Q. You were the only Indian representative at the BWF World Tour finals in Hangzhou last year. Tell us about the experience of making your debut at the season-ending event?
Gayatri: It was great, you know, being a part of, you know, the top eight in the world. And, you know, playing against all of these pairs. I think we've got to learn a lot. And I think it's been a great tournament as well. We've played some really good matches against the top pairs in the world. And yeah, I think it's been a great, great tournament towards the end of the year.
Q. Tell us about the toughest opponent you have faced during a tournament?
Gayatri: I don't, I think that many, everyone's equally tough, I feel. Maybe Liu and Tan.
Q. In the last few years, the profile of doubles pairs has witnessed a significant rise. What's your take on that?
Gayatri: I think it's great. I've always loved watching doubles, now playing doubles. So I've always grown up, you know, Chirag Bhaiya and Satvik Anna have always been a huge inspiration for me. And even when I was playing singles, I used to still enjoy playing doubles. So I think it's great now it's in the circuit. And we have some amazing doubles players, some really good mixed doubles players. I think it's great seeing doubles at the top.
Q. What are your goals for the next season?
Gayatri: I think just to start, we just want to be in the top 10 and just continue winning, you know, a few more tournaments, some world tour titles, and just to be in that top bracket would be great.