Gayatri Gopichand – Indian badminton’s rising star with a legacy to defend

Since the turn of 2022, Gayatri Gopichand’s name has been a prominent one in Indian badminton.

A flurry of successes, including a women’s doubles semi-final appearance at the All England Open 2022 with partner Treesa Jolly has caught the attention of the badminton fans.

For any Indian badminton aficionado, Gayatri’s rise will be reminiscent of the early 1990s when another Gopichand, Gayatri’s father Pullela, was making his mark.

Pullela Gopichand is an undisputed Indian badminton legend, winning multiple international titles including the All England Open, badminton’s holy grail. After retirement from the game, Pullela became perhaps the most celebrated coach in the country and is considered the architect behind moulding Olympic champions like Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu.

The young Gayatri Gopichand still has a long way to go to even match a fraction of her celebrity father’s accomplishments, but the signs have been promising.

"In general I’m proud of the way she’s playing, the way she’s improved, and the way she’s been disciplined in practice," Pullela Gopichand told the BWF website. "For me, it’s not very different, because I’ve had a lot of players I’ve taken care of since the time they were young, so she feels almost like another student, so it’s not very different from having another player."

Who is Gayatri Gopichand?

Born on March 4, 2003, Gayatri Gopichand is the daughter of Pullela Gopichand and P. V. V. Lakshmi, an eight-time national women’s badminton champion, a Commonwealth Games medallist and an Olympian.

Needless to say, Gayatri grew up in the Gopichand household where badminton was a way of life.

"In Gayatri’s case, it was her choice (to play badminton), and I’ve always maintained that it’s okay if you don’t want to play, but she’s the one who wants it more than me, which I’m very happy for," Pullela Gopichand said.

With the early initiation to the sport and ability to observe and train with India’s top shuttlers, including Saina and Sindhu, at the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy, run by her parents, Gayatri and her younger brother Sai Vishnu made rapid progress.

Besides Pullela, the Gopichand siblings have been trained by coach Anil Kumar, who looks after the junior players at the Gopichand Academy.

Gayatri also did well in various junior international tournaments, reaching the round of 16 at the 2017 Junior World Championships and making the final of the Pembangunan Jaya Raya International Junior Grand Prix in Indonesia the same year.

At the age of 15, Gayatri was already the India No. 1 in the Under-17 age group in India and was regularly beating senior players at domestic ranking tournaments.

Her performances at these ranking events also earned her a spot in the Indian badminton squad for the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games at the age of just 15. At the time she was the youngest member to make an Indian Asian Games badminton contingent.

Unnati Hooda recently took over the ‘honour’ after she was named in the Indian squad for Asian Games 2022 at the age of 14.

“It feels great to be on the same team as Sindhu and Saina, I will surely benefit from their experience. It’s an honour to be representing India,” Gayatri Gopichand told the Asian Age after getting picked for the team.

Gayatri Gopichand, however, didn’t get any game time in Jakarta. Meanwhile, the Indian team featuring PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal made the women’s team quarter-finals at the 2018 Asian Games.

Armed with the experience she had at the Asian Games, Gayatri Gopichand would step onto the senior circuit in 2019 and it wasn’t long before she won her maiden senior medal – a women’s singles silver at the 2019 South Asian Games in Nepal. The Indian badminton player also played an active role in helping the women’s team win gold at the Kathmandu meet.

She also clinched the singles silver behind compatriot Malvika Bansod at the Nepal International BWF Challenge series the same year.

Move to badminton doubles – a masterstroke

With COVID disrupting life as well as the badminton calendar, Gayatri Gopichand’s career was put on hold in 2020 but 2021 turned out to be a milestone year for her.

Mainly a singles player till then, Gayatri Gopichand shifted focus to doubles after her father, and coach Arun Vishnu encouraged her to try her hands in doubles. In fellow youngster Treesa Jolly, who had joined the Gopichand Academy just before the 2020 lockdown, Gayatri found a perfect partner.

“When the coaches saw our game styles, they thought that (putting us together) was the best. The shift to doubles was my decision. Also in singles, I was having too many injuries,” Gayatri had revealed to the Hindu.

The combination clicked almost instantly as the pair finished runners up in their very first tournament together — the Polish International 2021.

Gayatri-Treesa soon went on to win their first title together, pocketing gold at the India International Challenge before a silver medal-finish at the 2021 Welsh International. The same year also saw Gayatri Gopichand pair up with K. Sai Pratheek and finish runners up in the mixed doubles event at the India international.

Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly continued taking giant strides in 2022, reaching the final of the Syed Modi International before claiming their maiden BWF World Tour title at the Odisha Open.

Walking her father’s footsteps at All England

The big breakthrough of Gayatri Gopichand’s fledgling career was, however, still to come.

Heading into the All England Open 2022, Gayatri and Treesa were fourth on the reserves list for the BWF Super 1000 spectacle but late pull outs moved them into the women’s doubles main draw.

The Indian pair came from behind to beat Thailand’s Benyapa and Nuntakarn Aimsaard in the first round only to find themselves in the path of Indonesian pair Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu, the Tokyo Olympics women’s doubles champions, in the second round.

Unflustered, Gayatri and Treesa put up a good fight but lost the first game 21-18. In the second game, the Indian duo were leading 19-14 before the Indonesian team conceded the match as Apriyani Rahayu was injured and couldn’t continue.

In the quarter-finals, Gayatri and Treesa came across world championships silver medallists Lee So-hee and Shin Seung-chan.

Once again, Gayatri-Treesa lost the first game but came back swinging to deliver one of the biggest upsets at the event and in the process, became the first Indian women’s doubles pair to make the All England semi-finals.

The dream run, however, ended in the semi-finals against China’s Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu but the Indian pair had already scripted a slice on Indian badminton history at Birmingham.

For Gayatri, in particular, it was a special campaign, having achieved the high in the very tournament where her father established himself as one of Indian badminton’s greatest in 2001.

“Now, I feel like I can play anyone. Off court, they are all legends and all, but on court, everyone is equal and you just have to give your best,” said Gayatri Gopichand.

For a clear picture of exactly how fast Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly have grown as a pair, here’s a nifty bit of stats. When the duo broke into the BWF badminton rankings in September 2021, they were 433rd in the world. After the All England Open in March 2022, they had reached 34th.

At the All England Open 2023, the duo returned to Birmingham as the world No. 17 and made the semi-finals yet again. Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly defeated higher-ranked opponents, including the world No. 9 Japanese pair of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, before they were bested by South Korea's South Korean pair of Ha Na Baek and So Hee Lee.

In between their two All England semis appearances, Gayatri and Treesa also became Commonwealth medallists, winning the women's doubles bronze at the 2022 CWG, again in Birmingham. Both were also part of the mixed team which won the silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Gayatri-Treesa then played a big part in India's bronze medal finish at the Asia Mixed Team Badminton Championships 2023.

Despite Gayatri Gopichand’s rapid rise over the last couple of years, only time will tell if she can go on to take Indian badminton to the heights her father managed.

The youngster, however, seems to be playing the right strokes and has her eyes firmly set on her goals.

“My ultimate dream is to win an Olympic medal,” Gayatri Gopichand told Olympics.com.

Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly failed to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics but managed to claim their second World Tour crown later that year by winning the Syed Modi International Super 300 in Lucknow.