New Delhi: India’s women’s doubles player Jwala Gutta reckons qualifying for next year’s Olympics is a realistic dream but she doesn’t want to put pressure on her young partner Ashwini Ponnappa by thinking about the London event right now.
One half of the World championships bronze-medallist pair, Jwala said she is very satisfied with the way the year has panned out for her and now the focus is on the next three season-ending tournaments.
“We are focussing on each tournament and this year we have three more tournaments left — Hong Kong, China and Macau. We want to do well there and see how things happen,” Jwala said.
“We still have a realistic chance of qualifying for the Olympics but I don’t want to think about that now as I don’t want to put pressure on Ashwini.
“She is still young and should take it easy. If not this Olympics, she can represent India in the next one. So we want to concentrate on performances at the moment, Olympics is secondary,” said Jwala, who along with Ashwini, will take on eighth seeds Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark in the Hong Kong Open Super Series tomorrow.
Jwala and Ashwini have performed well at the world stage and also became the first Indian pair to win a World Championship medal when they won the bronze in London and the Hyderabadi is happy with the performances.
“I am satisfied with our performance. It was really great. Wins and losses don’t matter, what matters is how good you feel about your game. We lost close matches in a few tournaments such as Japan Open but it’s okay,” she said.
While Jwala and Ashwini are currently placed 18th, the Hyderabadi and her mixed doubles partner V Diju tumbled to 56, because of a minor back injury of the latter. However, Jwala is very happy with the way they made a comeback and are currently ranked 25th in the world.
“Injuries are part of a player’s life and it is sad that we could not participate in a few tournaments and our ranking went down but the kind of comeback we made, I think it is amazing.” (PTI)