Treesa Jolly, Gayatri Gopichand Enter All England Championships Semi-finals

Indian pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand continued their impressive run, dishing out another superlative performance to advance to their second successive semifinals at the All England Championships on Friday. The World number 17 Indian pair looked solid in their defence and relentless in attack, claiming 21-14 18-21 21-12 win over the newly-formed Chinese pair of Li Wen Mei and Liu Xuan Xuan in a 64-minute quarterfinals. The only Indians in the fray, Gayatri and Treesa will face either Indonesian combination of either seeded Apriyani Rahayu and Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti or Korea's Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee next.

Gayatri and Treesa had reached the semi-finals in the last edition as well when they were handed a spot in the main draw at the last moment.

But this time they entered the draw with a fair amount of experience, having claimed the Commonwealth Games bronze last year and notching up wins over higher-ranked pairs such as world No. 7 Tan Pearly and Thinnah Muralitharan at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championship in February.

The Indian duo had shocked seventh seeded Thais Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Ravindra Prajongjai and former world No. 1 pair from Japan Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota in the previous rounds.

In the quarterfinals, Gayatri, 20, and Treesa, 19, were up against Li, who has been World No 9 in the past, and Liu, a former World No 16.

Taking on the world number 52 pair, Gayatri stood solid at the net while Treesa came up with delectable smashes and drops from the back to dominate the proceedings in the rallies.

With coach Mathias Boe and Arun Vishnu constantly chirping from the sidelines, the Indian pair displayed their aggressive intent right from the word go and moved to 6-2 early on.