Treesa-Gayatri, Dhruv-Tanisha lose in doubles quarterfinals

NAGOYA: Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand's impressive run at the Asian Games came to an end with a straight-game loss to Malaysian world No. 5 pairing of Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan in the women's doubles quarterfinals here on Sunday.

The Indian pair, which won a maiden world championships bronze in New Delhi last month, looked competitive in the opening game but faded into errors to go down 18-21, 9-21 against Pearly and Thinaah, the 2025 world championships silver medallists.

At the adjacent court, mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto produced a gallant fight before losing 14-21 21-18 18-21 to world No. 1 China's Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dongping in another quarterfinals as it turned out to be a dismal day so far.

"It's very disappointing that we could not win a medal but we are really proud of the effort we both of us have made. We fought till the end, till the last point," Tanisha said after the match.

"A lot of learnings from the Asian Games. We played some really good badminton. I think it is one of the best we played against the Chinese. We have made a lot of improvement from our end. There is a lot of hunger and lot more confidence."

Dhruv said they had put their opponents under a lot of pressure but could have done better.

"We put them under a lot of pressure in the second game. In the third game, the gap was bigger but we came very close, but we could have done better. We made the match very close. We will take break now and we will see how it goes after that."

India's two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and young Unnati Hooda will face China's Chen Yu Fei and Japan's Akane Yamaguchi in the women's singles quarterfinals on Sunday.

Treesa and Gayatri looked in good touch coming into the tournament on the back of a successful world championships campaign at home and notched up twin wins over world No 3 Japanese pair of Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto.

However, up against the attacking Malaysians, against whom they had lost six times in eight meetings, Treesa and Gayatri fell 3-8 behind before scripting a fine recovery to draw level at 10-10.

It was highly attacking badminton as the Indians matched the Malaysian pair shot for shot to move together at 14-14. But then a lapse caught the Indians napping at the front court, followed by a few more errors, as Pearly and Thinaah moved 17-14 ahead.

A Gayatri deception at the front court was followed by a ferocious rally, with the Malaysian pair spraying one shot wide as the Indian seem to make another comeback. But Pearly and Thinaah moved to 19-16 before Treesa found the net to hand them four game points.

The Indians saved two before a smash did the trick for the Malaysians.

Treesa and Gayatri went up 3-0 after the change of ends, but the Malaysians started drawing errors from the Indians to surge to a 7-3 lead. It then went downhill for the Indians as they trailed 4-11, leaving them with a mountain to climb.

Thinaah and Pearly extended their lead to 13-6, with both Treesa and Gayatri committing far too many errors. The Malaysians soon had 12 match points. Pearly hit the net before Gayatri sprayed one wide.