Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand in action© X (Twitter)
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s stunning run at the Singapore Open came to an end with a straight game loss to World No 4. pair Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida in semifinals in Singapore on Saturday. With the defeat, India’s campaign at the BWF World Tour Super 750 also ended. Eyeing a hat-trick of wins against top-10 players, the unseeded Indians were no match for the Japanese who cruised to a 23-21 21-11 win in 47 minutes. Japanese pair thus avenged its semifinal defeat against Treesa-Gayatri in the Asia Team Championship in February.
The Japanese now lead 3-1 on head-to-head against the Indian world No 30 duo.
Treesa and Gayatri, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, had their moments in the first game when they fought their way back from being 5-10 down to make it 16-16.
Matsuyama and Shida, however, continued to dominate and got the game point at 20-18. But the Indians continued to fight and saved two game points to bring it level.
The Japanese again went ahead but Treesa and Gayatri saved another game point to make it 21-21 before Nami and Chiharu took a 1-0 lead in the match.
The second game was a one-sided affair for the Japanese as they breezed to huge 20-6 lead before allowing the Indians to come back briefly.
But the gap was to huge to bridge and Matsuyama and Shida secured a spot in the final.
The Indian duo had earlier eliminated world No 2. Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee in the pre-quarters and world No 6. Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Young in the quarters.
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