Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand reach World Championships semifinals with quarter-final win in New Delhi

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated China’s Jia Yifan and Shuxian Zhang in the quarterfinals of the BWF World Championships 2026 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi on Friday, August 21, 2026, advancing to the semifinals.

The Chinese duo entered the match with a combined haul of five World Championship medals and two Olympic medals, making the victory a notable upset by ranking. The match ended when Jia Yifan sent the shuttle wide on match point; Gayatri sprawled on the court while Treesa ran to embrace coaches Pullela Gopichand and B. Sumeeth Reddy in the coaches’ corner, and the Indian pair broke down before taking a long break and returning to face questions.

“It was really difficult with all the emotions and processing what had finally happened but we are ok now,” Treesa admitted. “We are really happy to get into the semifinals and confirm a medal but we are not stopping here. There are matches still to come,” she declared.

“We don’t want to think too much about the outcome. Today was also a tough match, we knew it would not be easy. We were trailing by a game and even in the second, it was tricky. We told each other to stay calm and will do the same tomorrow, get on court and give our 100 percent and just enjoy,” Gayatri said when asked about their approach to the next match.

Gayatri addressed the presence of Pullela Gopichand in the coaches’ chair, describing his support in full: “When we started as partners, he was the one who told us he believed we could achieve something big. It is really special to have him in the chair, he has been a big support and I am grateful he can travel with us. He was telling us to just stay calm, stay in the present and that really helped. There have been a few tournaments where I have messed up with my greediness to score quickly. Today we were not greedy, we were just being patient and waiting for the right moments to the points.”

Gayatri has made no secret of Gopichand the father’s strict regimen, but on Friday there were no complaints about Gopichand the coach from either player.

Next up for Jolly and Gopichand is a meeting with the top-seeded pair of Sheng Shu Liu & Ning Tan in the semifinals, a match that will follow their quarterfinal victory and confirm whether they can progress further in the World Championships.