Coach Reddy Reveals Treesa And Gayatri's Journey To World Championships Medal

Indian badminton stars Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand have secured a historic medal at the Badminton World Championships, a testament to their resilience, contrasting strengths, and dedicated coaching.Photograph: B Sumeeth Reddy/InstagramKey PointsTreesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand secured a historic bronze medal at the Badminton World Championships, overcoming significant challenges.Coach B Sumeeth Reddy highlighted their emotional journey, including Gayatris pressure as Pullela Gopichands daughter and Treesas hunger to prove herself.The duos contrasting personalities, with Gayatris composure and Treesas aggression, complement each other on court.Improved on-court rotation and dual roles were crucial to their success, alongside a strong focus on physical preparation and stroke quality.They demonstrated remarkable resilience, recovering from Treesas high-grade ankle injury earlier in the year to achieve this career-defining milestone.Doubles coach B Sumeeth Reddy has seen the struggles of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand from close quarters as they worked their way through injuries, poor form and plummeting rankings before assuring India of a World Championships medal on Friday.Reddy, an Olympian and Commonwealth Games medallist who joined Indias national coaching setup after retiring last year, was in the coaches chair alongside chief coach Pullela Gopichand when Treesa and Gayatri were overwhelmed with emotion after assuring themselves of at least a bronze. The Indians produced a performance of a lifetime to see off the world No. 4 Chinese pair of Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian 16-21 21-15 21-13 and enter the semifinals.Overcoming Emotional Hurdles And Personal BaggageWhen emotions fall in, no words could normalise things. Theyre still very emotional. It takes probably a day for things to digest, Reddy told reporters.Both of them have their own baggage, starting with Gaya (Gayatri) being Gopi sirs daughter.

Everyone would say silver spoon and all of that. With this, she would also be relieved that shes a World Championships medallist. That would be a huge medal in her career.Treesa has also been very hungry since the start of her career. She wanted to prove a point that shes not playing tournaments just to compete.

She always wanted to be the star of Indian badminton. This again is a big achievement in her kitty. That was one of the reasons why she was very emotional.Complementary Personalities And Tactical EvolutionThe two players have contrasting personalities on court, with Gayatri known for her composure and Treesa for her aggression. Reddy believes those differences complement each other.We have two different players, Treesa being the player whos always charging at the opponents while Gayatri being the calm one.

You need to deal with them differently.We obviously encourage Treesa to just calm a little bit when she is becoming too aggressive or smashing too often. At the same time, we need to encourage Gaya to be a little bit aggressive, he said.Gayatri generally handles the front court while Treesa has traditionally marshalled the back court, but the pair have worked on rotating more frequently and taking up dual roles.Since the last 30-40 days, the rotation has gotten better. If you remember, most of them would say that Treesa would always stay back and Gaya, but I think this tournament, thats not the case. Both of them shared their load equally, said Reddy, who represented India at the Olympics alongside Manu Attri.Resilience Through Injury And RehabilitationThe medal is particularly significant given the setbacks the pair endured earlier this year.

Treesa suffered an ankle injury while training ahead of the Asia Badminton Championships and Uber Cup after accidentally stepping on Gayatris foot. An MRI subsequently revealed two high-grade muscle tears and two ligament tears.After a gruelling rehabilitation, the pair returned at the Indonesia Open, played at the US Open and then won the Philippine International Challenge earlier this month.Obviously, she (Treesa) was very low, even Gaya was very low, but from day one, rather than thinking about why it happened, they were focusing on what needs to be done better.Treesa used to focus more on her stroke and improve her confidence and Gaya started on the first day with her fitness. And you can see, today they were good enough to play another 20 minutes after the match as well. So I think they focused on that.Strategic Coaching For Peak PerformanceReddy said the coaching team and trainers put a strong emphasis on physical preparation while also working on the quality of the pairs strokes.There was a lot of focus on the physicality.

Huge credit to the trainers as well. Not just the physical part, I think with the quality of the stroke, physically you need not move so much if the quality of the stroke is really good, then the opponent is struggling...Disclaimer: News content is sourced from the stated source. Headlines, summaries, section headers, and images are automatically generated or selected using AI/algorithms and may not always be fully accurate. Readers are advised to refer to the full article for complete context.