NEW DELHI: Doubles coach B Sumeeth Reddy, along with national chief coach Pullela Gopichand, were witness to Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly's significant performance from up close. The victory on Friday naturally meant as much to them.
Along with Treesa and Gayatri, who confirmed a medal for India in the ongoing Worlds, the coaches have been through a lot in recent months and it was naturally an emotional hour for everyone. "When emotions fall in, no words could normalise things. They're still very emotional. It takes probably a day for things to digest," Sumeeth told reporters.
The former doubles shuttler felt both Treesa and Gayatri have had to deal with plenty of pressure over the years.
"Both of them have their own baggage, starting with Gaya (Gayatri) being Gopi sir's daughter. Everyone would say silver spoon and all of that. With this, she would also be relieved that she's a Worlds medallist. That would be a huge medal in her career," Sumeeth, who was the first Indian doubles player to represent the country in the Olympics alongside Manu Attri, said.
"Treesa was also very hungry since the start of her career. She wanted to prove a point that she's not playing tournaments just to compete. She always wanted to be the star of Indian badminton. This again is a big achievement in her kitty. That was one of the reasons why she was very emotional."
He felt Treesa's aggressive game and Gayatri's cool approach inside the court compliments their game. Despite being yin and yang, they are able to get the best out of each other.
"We have two different players, Treesa being the player who's always charging at the opponents while Gaya being the calm one. You need to deal with them differently. We obviously encourage Treesa to just calm a little bit when she is becoming too aggressive or smashing too often. At the same time, we need to encourage Gaya to be a little bit aggressive," he said.
Rotation between the two players on the court also paid dividends on the day. Sumeeth said it is one tactical switch they have worked on in order to bolster their game.
"Since the last 30-40 days, the rotation has gotten better. If you remember, most of them would say that Treesa would always stay back and Gaya, but I think this tournament, that's not the case. Both of them shared their load equally," he said.
The coach revealed that both the shuttlers were really low at the start when they were forced to skip Asian Championships and Uber Cup due to Treesa's injury earlier this year. But he felt they eventually accepted their fate and started focussing on their training, which is now paying dividends.
"Rather than thinking about why it happened, they were focussing on what needs to be done better. Treesa used to focus more on her stroke and improve her confidence and Gaya started (training) on the first day on her fitness. And today they were good enough to play another 20 minutes after the match as well," he said.
"(...) I think whatever has happened has happened for good because rather than the Asia Championships, the World Championships is a bigger event," he added.