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 a news agency.
"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.
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.
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