India’s campaign in the Singapore Badminton Open 2024 ended with a semi-final loss for Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand in the women’s doubles event on Saturday.
Treesa-Gayatri, 30th in the world badminton rankings, went down to world No. 4 Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida of Japan 23-21, 21-11 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The first game was a tight contest with the Indian badminton players going toe-to-toe with their Japanese opponents. Although the fourth-seeded duo of Matsuyama-Shida carved out an 8-2 lead early on, Treesa-Gayatri showed plenty of resilience and trailed by a point at 10-9.
The fourth-seeded Japanese pair once again took a four-point lead at 16-12 but the Indian shuttlers bounced back and restored parity at 16-16.
Both teams jostled for the lead in the final stages of the first game. However, Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida had the last say and clinched the game at 23-21.
Treesa-Gayatri were no match for their Japanese opponents in the second game as Matsuyama and Shida took charge of the contest with a 13-2 lead.
Treesa and Gayatri, bronze medallists at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, improved their performance after the break but catching up to the initial deficit proved to be an uphill task as the Indians ended up losing the semi-final in 47 minutes.
This was the maiden semi-final appearance for Treesa and Gayatri in a BWF Super 750 tournament.
Treesa-Gayatri had pulled off a massive win over reigning All England champions Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee of the Republic of Korea in the second round before beating their compatriots and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong in the quarter-finals.
India’s leading singles players PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy were ousted from the Singapore Open in the second round on Thursday. World No. 1 men’s doubles pair Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy bowed out in the first round.
The next challenge for the Indian shuttlers will be the Indonesia Open BWF Super 1000 tournament starting on Tuesday.