Badminton: Treesa-Gayatri enter pre-quarters of World C’ships

Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand produced a solid performance to advance to the pre-quarterfinals of the World Championships with a straight-game win over Chang Ching Hui and Yang Ching Tun of Chinese Taipei here on Wednesday.

World number 19 Gayatri and Treesa, who reached the semifinals of the All England Championships in the last two editions, beat Chang and Yang, ranked 37th, 21-18 21-10 in 38 minutes. The Commonwealth Games bronze winners, who had received a bye in the first round, will face an uphill task against top seed Chinese Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan in their next round.

Treesa and Gayatri lagged 2-5 early on but soon started rotating the strike and extending the rallies to draw out errors from their opponent to turn it around, reaching 8-6.

Chang and Yang clawed back at 8-8 but the Indian pair managed an 11-9 lead at the break with the Taiwanese duo spraying the net thrice.

Gayatri stepped up after the resumption, showing great anticipation at the front court as India led 14-11.

Treesa committed a few errors but the Indian duo still managed to keep its nose ahead, despite the fighting Taiwanese pair.

A service error from Chang and Yang gave the Indian pair four game points.

Treesa sent one wide and then hit the net to squander two of them before sealing it when Yang

sprayed into the net.