Keeping the flame alive in badminton: From Jwala-Ashwini to Treesa-Gayatri, India’s women’s doubles story finds another chapter on the Worlds podium

India’s unbroken relationship with the BWF World Championships podium in this millennium started with Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa in 2011. Twenty eight years after after Prakash Padukone’s bronze in 1983, the unseeded pair brought home another bronze from the London edition, in the women’s doubles. India have not returned empty-handed since.

It is another story that even though the women shuttlers ensured that continuity, the medals that followed belonged to the singles players. PV Sindhu won five, including India’s only gold so far in 2019; Saina Nehwal got two, and one each came from B Sai Praneeth, Srikanth Kidambi and Lakshya Sen. It was not till 2022 that Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy would add another doubles medal to the list.

After a period of handing over the baton to their male counterparts — HS Prannoy in 2023 and Chirag-Satwik in 2025 — Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand have reclaimed it for the women.


Again, it was an unseeded story. The world No. 39 duo of TreesaGayatri ensured India did not miss a medal in 2026 too. The crowd at Indira Gandhi International Stadium in New Delhi had already heaved collective sigh when Sindhu faltered for the first time against Chinese opposition at the BWF World Championships. Then Ayush Shetty, the giant giant-killer, could not build on that triumph against world No.1 Shi Yu Qi, while world No. 5 Chirag-Satwik faltered in the quarterfinals on Friday.

In a tournament coach Vimal Kumar rightly terms as a chapter in “heartbreak, disappointment, and errors”, TreesaGayatri are the “silver lining” and perhaps a sign of “evolution”.

“Ayush should have converted those crucial points against Alwi Farhan (Indonesia) and not made those tactical mistakes. He is good at beating top-ranked players. But it was disappointing to see Lakshya (Sen) lose to Garret Tan (USA, world No. 92) after being a game up. Sindhu made a lot of unforced errors against Wang (Zhi Yi, world No. 5),” the former national chief coach, Kumar, sums up India’s singles campaign at the tournament.

What worries him more is that, when badminton shifts to the new 3x15 scoring system in January, there will be “less and lesser chances to survive such mistakes”. While matches will remain best of three games, each game will be played to 15 points instead of the current 21-point target, making rallies more intense and every point even more valuable.

“As far as Chirag and Satwik are concerned, they would have fared better had they got enough match practice,” Kumar adds.

After a bye in the first round, they received a walkover in the next. They won their round-of-16 match after losing the opening game, but exited in the quarterfinals in straight games, losing the second 9-21.

“Our players tend to do better when there are lesser expectations,” Kumar quips. Maybe that was something that worked for India in the women’s doubles. When all eyes were on the likes of Sindhu, Sen, and SatwikChirag, Treesa-Gayatri quietly made their way through the draw. Owing to Treesa’s injury, their world No. 9 ranking in 2025 had slipped to 58 in June. As the Championships approached, they managed to reach 39.

Perseverance, then, became their mantra — right from beating world No. 17 and world No. 7 pairs in the round of 32 and 16 respectively to refusing to give up against the world no. 4 pair of China’s Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in Friday’s quarterfinal to confirm a medal for India. The 23-year-olds then challenged the top seeds — Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning, again from China, in the Saturday semifinal. They went down fighting 21-18, 13-21, 8-21 to settle for bronze.

In a year that has not been very forgiving to Indian shuttlers, with injuries and failure to find form, Kumar feels “while singles will still attract the majority of attention, hopefully now India’s standards in doubles will continue to rise”.

When it comes to the sport, the country has always devoted more resources to singles. Jwala and Ashwini, who wrote the first page of this story, were no strangers to asking for adequate coaching staff. But now national chief coach Pullela Gopichand is himself keeping a close eye on the doubles’ progress, including his daughter Gayatri. Malaysian Tan Kim Her is in his second stint as doubles coach, and former doubles player B Sumeeth Reddy is in the team too.

Who knows, this small step by TreesaGayatri might just lead to more Indian pairs on the Championships and other podiums.