‘There was pressure and we were nervous’: Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand after All England 2023 semi-final exit

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand were beaten by Korean duo of Baek Na Ha and Lee So Hee at the All England 2023 badminton championships.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Pullela after All England 2023

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Pullela speaking after the game. (Screengrab)

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s run in the All England 2023 badminton tournament stopped after the Indian pair signed off with a second successive semifinal finish on Saturday.

The duo was beaten by the Korean world number 20 duo of Baek Na Ha and Lee So Hee, losing 10-21 10-21 in a 46-minute game at the Utilita arena in Birmingham.

“We learned a lot from this match,” Gayatri said after the match.

Story continues below this ad

“They were excellent and weren’t leaving any shuttle,” she added.

“When we played against them, their defense was good, it was better than yesterday. We were panicking and didn’t play well,” said Treesa.

“We just kept attacking, but there was pressure and we were nervous,” she explained.

Gayatri’s father, Pullela Gopichand, the chief national coach, was the last Indian to win the All-England crown in 2001, the first being the legendary Prakash Padukone in 1980.

Story continues below this ad

Outlining the positives from the game, she said, “We gained a lot of confidence and from starting to finish, we played with good players and came up to semis.”

Despite the loss, it was a good week for the young Indians, who started playing together only in 2021 and had surprised all by reaching the semifinals in the last edition after being promoted to the main draw from the reserve list.

Gayatri and Treesa accounted for some big scalps such as the seventh seeded Thai pair of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Ravindra Prajongjai and Japan’s former world number ones Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota in the early rounds this week.