New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS) Indian shuttler Treesa Jolly said she had visualised herself standing on the World Championships podium every day over the last three months, and seeing that dream come true made her historic bronze medal with Gayatri Gopichand even more special.
“I actually manifested every day being on that podium. I think that’s somewhere the manifestation, that belief. Every day you dream for that. Every day you visualise yourself manifesting that. I think that you can see it actually happening today,” Treesa told IANS.
Treesa and Gayatri went down 21-18, 13-21, 8-21 to the defending champions China’s Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in the last four, but their run had already secured India a historic women’s doubles bronze, the country’s first medal in the event at the World Championships since Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa’s bronze in 2011.
The Indian duo produced one of the biggest results of the tournament by defeating fourth seeds Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in the quarterfinals to assure themselves of a medal.
Reflecting on the mindset that helped the pair overcome the challenges, Treesa said she had learned to strike the right balance between aggression and calmness.
“I feel like this time, this tournament, I was converting into calmness and aggressiveness. When I need the aggressiveness, I just need to use that. When I need to be in a position where I need to handle the situation, I just need to be calm,” she said.
“I think that changed in me. That helped us too. I think playing with Chinese and all, you cannot give easy points. You need to be alert from the first to the 21st point,” she added.
That approach was evident throughout their campaign, particularly in the quarterfinal against the fourth-seeded Chinese pair.
“I think that’s what we did here. We were so alert, and we were not ready to give any easy points to them. In our mind, it was like they needed to struggle to get points from us. I think that really worked. When we played the quarterfinals, at the end of the game, actually the Chinese cracked because we were so alert and we were not giving points away. That really helped us,” Treesa said.
Against Liu and Tan, Treesa and Gayatri started strongly and took the opening game 21-18 after a tense battle. The Chinese duo responded by winning the second game 21-13 before dominating the decider 21-8.
Despite falling short of a historic World Championships final appearance, Treesa said the medal was something she would cherish for the rest of her life.
‘This is kind of a dream come true. Arjun Award, being a World Championship medallist. I think this is an amazing week. I think in my life, I always cherish these moments,” she said.
–IANS
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