On Saturday evening, Pullela Gopichand was in no hurry to leave.
The former All England champion, chief national coach, and one of Indian badminton’s most influential figures had just watched his daughter, Gayatri Gopichand, and Treesa Jolly win a medal at the World Championships in Delhi. Standing in the mixed zone under the arena lights, he continued answering questions long after most coaches would have left.
There was pride in his voice, along with something rarer for a man usually all business at courtside: a sense of lightness. He joked with organisers, answered patiently, and seemed content to let the moment linger.
A day later, another father spoke about the same medal from a very different setting.
Jolly Mathew was on the phone from Cherupuzha, a small town in northern Kerala where badminton courts did not exist until he built one himself. His voice travelled through a patchy phone line, but the pride was unmistakable. He wanted to speak about the journey that had taken his daughter from a modest courtyard in Kannur district to the World Championships podium in the national capital.
For Gopichand, the story of achievement is already familiar: the All England title in 2001, the successful coaching career that followed, and the rise of players such as Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu. Over the past two decades, his name has become inseparable from the growth of Indian badminton.
This time, however, it was Jolly Mathew’s story that deserved to be told.
A Volleyball Court Becomes a Badminton Court
Mathew was a physical education teacher and a respected volleyball coach at St Joseph’s School in Cherupuzha, Kannur. At his home, he had a volleyball court in the courtyard where he trained young players every evening. The sound of the ball striking the packed earth was a familiar part of family life.
Treesa and her elder sister grew up watching from the sidelines.
Mathew initially believed both daughters might take up volleyball. They were surrounded by the game and watched it being played daily just outside their home. But as he observed them, he began to consider which sport would be most suitable for children of their age.
“She was very interested in sports. She wanted to play and was very enthusiastic,” Mathew told IndiaToday.in.
“At home, I used to train girls in volleyball, and she would watch them practise and play. She was very interested in all of that.”
Since badminton could be played from a young age, Mathew felt it would suit Treesa better. He had played the sport to some extent himself, and almost by accident, the volleyball coach became a badminton coach for an audience of one.
“I thought that if I was training children from the neighbourhood, I should also bring my own child into the field,” Mathew said. “I wanted to find a game that suited her, and because I had played badminton to some extent, it was the first game that came to my mind.”
There was one major obstacle: Cherupuzha had no badminton courts nearby.
So, he built one.
“There were no courts in our area, so I built an indoor court at our house and trained her there,” he said.
The badminton court was initially the family’s volleyball court, repurposed for the two sisters.
“My father was a volleyball coach, and we had a volleyball court in our backyard. At that time, many players were taking up badminton, so he converted it into a badminton court for me and my elder sister,” Treesa told the Badminton Association of India.
Kerala’s monsoon made an open court unusable for much of the year. Mathew covered the court with tarpaulin, making rain another challenge to train through rather than a reason to stop training.
The Financial Struggle
The bigger challenge was financial.
“We did not understand that initially. We went to one state-level tournament and only later realised how the system worked,” Mathew said.
Selection to the Kerala team depended on participation in ranking tournaments across the state. Each tournament required travel, entry fees, equipment, accommodation, and time away from work. For a family dependent on a teacher’s salary, the expenses were significant.
“So we had to travel to all these tournaments,” he said.
There were no sponsors to ease the burden.
“We faced many financial difficulties. There was no sponsorship from anyone, whether from the association or elsewhere. We had to bear the expenses ourselves.”
Treesa remembers those years too. What she remembers most, however, is that her father never allowed the financial pressure to become her burden.
“The initial days were difficult. It was an expensive sport, and we had to face many financial struggles,” she said. “But I think my father somehow never made me feel those pressures.”
“That confidence gives you something special when your parents tell you that you have the talent to play at that level. My parents have been amazing in that regard. I am here because of them.”
Mathew coached Treesa himself until Class 7. Then he made an important decision: he stepped aside because he understood that remaining her coach could eventually limit her progress.
Looking Beyond Conventional Success
Treesa was also a good student. Her strong performance in the Plus Two examinations meant that conventional career options—medicine, engineering, or a government job—were open to her.
Mathew understood the appeal of those choices. Yet, the more he watched his daughter train on the tarpaulin-covered court, the more he felt that badminton was the path she should follow.
“We had our own ambitions, of course,” he said.
“But I never looked at sport merely as a means to get a job. I saw it as something that could contribute to health, physical fitness, and enjoyment.”
Over time, this view grew into a stronger conviction.
“How many doctors can we have?” he asked. “There can be many doctors from one school or one panchayat. But how many people can become Indian players?”
His ambition was never modest. “First, you want to become an Indian player. After that, you want to reach the World Championships and the Olympics.”
For Treesa, he believed the dream had to be even bigger.
“It was not just about going to the Olympics. She wanted an Olympic medal.”
Mathew had seen something in his daughter that he believed was uncommon.
“If you study well, you can become a collector. There can be thousands of collectors. But there are very few people who win medals at this level. There is only one PV Sindhu. There cannot be many PV Sindhus.”
A decision made in a small Kerala town would eventually inspire an entire village.
Treesa later said, “I think my father is the star. When I started playing, there was nothing in my village. After the Commonwealth Games medal, I can see so many courts now. Students come to me, people are excited to play, and everyone in my village plays badminton now. Earlier, there was only a clay court.”
Knowing When to Let Go
Mathew took Treesa as far as he reasonably could. He knew that to progress further, she would need more specialised coaching.
His friend, Dr Anil Ramachandran, the head of sports at Kannur University and a badminton specialist, took Treesa under his guidance. The family arranged accommodation near the university, and Ramachandran coached her from Class 8 to Class 11. During this period, she began rising through the ranks of competitive badminton.
The national camp followed. Eventually, she came under the guidance of Pullela Gopichand.
On the strength of her international performances and junior ranking, Treesa was included in the Target Olympic Podium Scheme. In February 2020, while still in Plus One, she joined Gopichand’s senior camp in Hyderabad.
A journey that had begun on a patch of packed earth in Cherupuzha had reached the highest level of India’s badminton system.
Two Players, Two Pressures
In 2021, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand were paired together, shortly after India emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic. Coaches at the academy were experimenting with combinations among promising juniors.
Treesa’s natural game was built around power from the backcourt. Gayatri was more comfortable near the net and in the frontcourt. On paper, the partnership made sense even before the first shuttle was struck.
Yet, the two players came from very different backgrounds.
Gayatri grew up with a surname that carried enormous prestige in Indian badminton. It opened doors, but it also brought expectations. She had to constantly prove that her place in the game was earned through performance, not inherited through her father’s name.
Treesa came from a town where the first badminton court was built by her father in their own backyard.
Both carried pressures they had not chosen.
Gayatri has spoken openly about the weight of expectations.
“Honestly, I think sometimes on court I do feel that pressure,” she said. “I would not say I do not, but there is also a lot of guidance. That is the better part of it.”
Over time, she learned how to handle it.
“Many people tell me, ‘You are Gopi sir’s daughter. You need to prove yourself.’ But I think I am much better now. There is pressure, but I have learned how to manage it.”
Treesa’s pressure was different. It was less about living up to a famous name and more about honouring the sacrifice her family had made to give her an opportunity.
Over the years, those two separate journeys merged into one partnership.
They reached two All England semi-finals, won a Commonwealth Games medal, and emerged as India’s leading women’s doubles pair. Yet one question remained: were they merely India’s best pair, or could they truly compete with the world’s elite?
The Power Behind Treesa’s Game
The answer arrived in Delhi, with a sound that became familiar across the arena: the sharp crack of a Treesa Jolly smash.
Her power from the backcourt became one of the dominant talking points of the World Championships. Commentators repeatedly highlighted the pace and force she generated, which gave the Indian pair a weapon that few opponents could handle.
The roots of that strength lay in her childhood volleyball training.
“My jump smash may also be because my father made me train with volleyball drills at the beginning,” Treesa said.
“When I was in Class 1, I used to practise the volleyball jump serve. That gave me strength.”
The volleyball coach who had trained neighbourhood children in his backyard had, without intending to, helped create one of Indian badminton’s most formidable attacking weapons.
Mathew had recognised her natural aggression long before she had a major stage on which to display it.
“She has always had tremendous energy, power, and aggression,” he said. “It is naturally in her.”
Over the years, elite coaching gave shape to that raw ability. Her power was refined with better timing, control, shot selection, and deception. The fire remained the same; only the stage grew larger.
The Breakthrough in Delhi
Treesa and Gayatri arrived in Delhi after a disrupted season. Treesa had been sidelined by injury for nearly three months, causing the pair to lose ranking points and competitive rhythm.
However, a 45-day training period under Pullela Gopichand and B. Sumeeth Reddy helped them rebuild their game. Gayatri assumed greater responsibility in the backcourt while Treesa worked her way back to full match fitness.
“I wanted to cover the backcourt when she returned because it would not be easy for her to come back after injury and cover so much area,” Gayatri said.
Treesa, meanwhile, improved her net play and added greater finesse to her powerful attacking game.
In Delhi, the pair defeated the seventh seeds and then overcame the fourth-seeded Chinese pair, whom they had never beaten before. In the semi-final, they won the opening game against the world’s top-ranked pair before eventually losing the match.
The medal was bronze, but its colour mattered less than what the performance represented.
Gayatri and Treesa had competed against the world’s best and made them uncomfortable for much of the match. The lingering question over whether they could be more than India’s best women’s doubles pair had finally been answered.
Two Fathers, One Medal
On Saturday, Gopichand stood in the mixed zone and spoke about his daughter. He insisted that he did not feel anything extra merely because she was his daughter, but his pride was impossible to miss.
On Sunday, around 400 miles south, Jolly Mathew spoke from Kerala over a phone line. He described a daughter who had entered the World Championships with barely a month of preparation behind her and achieved a result that nobody in the family had dared to expect.
Gopichand’s journey helped build India’s belief that badminton could produce world-class champions. Jolly Mathew’s quieter and slower journey has inspired a village.
Today, in Cherupuzha, courts stand where none existed when Treesa was a child. One court became many. One little girl became a World Championships medallist
