August 14, 2011: Jwala Gutta-Ashwini Ponnappa win women’s doubles bronze
By becoming the first Indian couple to take home a medal at the World Championship, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa created history.
Saina Nehwal, the top badminton player from India, was the centre of attention at the 2011 World Championships in London. She did, however, withdraw from the competition after dropping the women’s singles quarterfinal. After that, the women’s doubles team of Jwala Gutta, 27, and Ashwini Ponnappa, 22, made India happy by capturing the bronze medal.
By becoming the first Indian couple to take home a medal at the World Championship, they created history. For the record, the pair fell short in the semifinals to the fifth-seeded Chinese team of Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, 14-21, 16-21.
Jwala and Ashwini beat the 12th-seeded Indonesian pair of Vita Marrisa and Nadya Melati in the quarterfinals before shocking the second-seeded Chinese Taipei team of Wen Hsing Cheng and Yu Chin Chien in the second round.
The famous Prakash Padukone won the men’s singles bronze medal at the 1983 World Championship, becoming the first Indian to do so.
One of the best badminton pairings in India was Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa. The two went on to win bronze at the Asian Games and Uber Cup in 2014, as well as silver at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Gutta-Ponnappa is the first and so far only Indian women’s doubles team to win a Grand Prix title (Canadian Grand Prix). The duo represented India in two Olympic Games too (2012 and 2016).
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