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

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand run in the All England 2023 badminton tournament came to a halt after the Indian pair signed off with a second successive semifinal finish on Saturday.
The duo were beaten 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.
“We learnt a lot from this match,” Gayatri said after the match.
“They were really good and weren’t leaving any shuttle,” she added.
“When we played against them, their defence was good, it was better than yesterday. We were just panicking and didn’t play well,” said Tressa.
“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.
Outlying the positive 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 reaching the semifinals in the last edition after being promoted to the main draw from the reserve l.
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.