Treesa Jolly, Gayatri Gopichand take bronze after semi-final loss to Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning at BWF World Championships 2026
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand will take home a bronze medal after their three-game semi-final defeat to world number one Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in the women’s doubles at the BWF World Championships 2026 at the Indira Gandhi Stadium on Saturday. The Chinese pair recovered from a first-game loss to win 18-21, 21-13, 21-8.
Ranked 39th in the world, Treesa and Gayatri reached the semi-finals by defeating three seeded pairs and thereby ended India’s 15-year wait for a women’s doubles medal since Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa in 2011. The duo had not played many tournaments earlier in the year before this campaign, and their bronze ensured India extended its run of winning at least one medal at the World Championships since 2011.
The Indians started the semi-final strongly, opening a 7-2 lead before Liu and Tan strung together 10 consecutive points to take their first lead in the game. Treesa and Gayatri fought back with a six-point streak, then closed out the opening game with a run of five straight points from 16-18 as an 8000-strong crowd looked on.
In the second game the Indian pair remained competitive and held a 12-11 lead, but a 49-shot rally at 12-12 swung momentum to the Chinese and was followed by an eight-point run that forced a deciding game. “In the second game, second half, I feel like the few mistakes made us a little bit un-confident, little bit kind of doubtful about the strokes we were playing. Then we went more defensive and we cannot play defensively against them. “But if you see the whole week, it has been amazing, I feel like, we have created many upsets and it’s such a great week for us. So many great matches we played and so many things to take away from this tournament,” Treesa reflected after the match.
Liu and Tan then applied sustained pressure in the decider, producing a 56-shot rally at 2-2—the match’s longest—and taking control through tight net work and quick jump smashes to pull away and complete the victory.
The first half of the semifinals day also produced several other results: fifth seeds Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue came from a game down to beat Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin 19-21, 21-13, 21-11 to become the first-ever French finalists at the World Championships; ninth seed Alex Lanier beat Canada’s seventh seed Victor Lai 16-21, 21-13, 21-14 in an 85-minute match; and defending champion Akane Yamaguchi defeated Pornpawee Chochuwong 21-12, 21-17. Additional semi-final winners included Kodai Naraoka (17-21, 21-11, 21-10), An Se Young (24-22, 21-16), Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik (21-17, 21-18), Liang Wei Kang/Wang Chang (21-18, 21-14), Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee (21-17, 21-12) and Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping (20-22, 21-14, 22-20).
Treesa and Gayatri were the lone Indian shuttlers to win a medal at the 2026 World Championships and became only the second Indian women’s doubles pair to claim a World Championships medal. Gicquel and Delrue join Lanier and other semi-final winners in final-day action, while Akane Yamaguchi remains on course for a potential fourth world title.