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Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their women’s doubles semifinal to top seeds Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning 21-18, 13-21, 8-21, taking bronze and India’s first World Championships medal in the discipline since 2011. Alex Lanier beat Victor Lai in three games to reach a first men’s singles final, and Akane Yamaguchi saw off Pornpawee Chochuwong in straight games.
New Delhi, India: For one game, the world No. 39 pair looked like they might do it again.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand took the opening game 21-18 against the top seeds, world No. 1s and defending champions, in front of a home crowd that had spent the week watching India’s singles hopes disappear. Then the match turned, and it turned completely.
The second game went 21-13 to the Chinese. The third went 21-8. Seventy minutes after it started, India’s run was over — and India’s medal was secure.
What the Bronze Means
Treesa and Gayatri become only the second Indian women’s doubles pair to win a World Championships medal, after Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa’s bronze in London in 2011. The fifteen-year wait is over, and so is any doubt about whether India’s medal streak would survive this edition — the country has now taken at least one medal at every World Championships since 2011.
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The route there was the story. Ranked 39th, they beat three seeded pairs: seventh seeds Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi 21-16, 21-12, then fourth seeds Jia Yifan and Zhang Shuxian 16-21, 21-15, 21-13 in the quarterfinal that guaranteed the medal, recovering from a game down against a pair containing a two-time Olympic medallist and the defending champion.
They had lost six of their seven previous meetings with Liu and Tan. Taking the first game was not nothing.
Lanier Reaches a First Final
The men’s singles semifinal produced the same shape in reverse. Alex Lanier, the ninth seed, lost the opening game 21-16 to Canada’s seventh-seeded Victor Lai and then took the next two 21-13, 21-14 to reach the final.
It is the second time in three days Lanier has come from a game down against a higher seed. In the quarterfinals he removed Kunlavut Vitidsarn, the 2023 champion and second seed, 19-21, 21-16, 21-16 — the last former world champion left in the draw. Whoever lifts the men’s trophy on Sunday will be a first-time winner.
Lai’s defeat ends a run that had taken in Rasmus Gemke 21-19, 21-18 in the last eight.
Yamaguchi Straight Through
Akane Yamaguchi needed no such recovery. The second seed beat Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong 21-12, 21-17 to reach the women’s singles final, following a quarterfinal in which she had dismissed Canada’s Michelle Li 21-17, 21-10 — the same Michelle Li who had ended Unnati Hooda’s tournament earlier in the week.
A Home Championship, One Medal
India staged these championships for the first time since 2009, and the week has been thin. PV Sindhu’s bid for a record sixth medal ended in the round of 16. Ayush Shetty went out the same evening, hours after beating the defending champion had made him the story of the tournament. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost their men’s doubles quarterfinal to Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang 21-18, 21-9.
That leaves Treesa and Gayatri as the whole of it. A bronze, a fifteen-year drought broken, and a streak preserved — by an unseeded pair ranked 39th in the world.
Semifinal results
Women’s doubles: [1] Liu Shengshu/Tan Ning (CHN) d. G. Gopichand/T. Jolly (IND) 18-21, 21-13, 21-8
Men’s singles: [9] A. Lanier (FRA) d. [7] V. Lai (CAN) 16-21, 21-13, 21-14
Women’s singles: [2] A. Yamaguchi (JPN) d. P. Chochuwong (THA) 21-12, 21-17
Venue: Indira Gandhi Arena, New Delhi
