Syed Modi International 2025 badminton: Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand defend crown

Treesa Jolly and Gayatry Gopichand

The duo became the first Indian doubles team to win a BWF World Tour title this year. Kidambi Srikanth lost in the men’s singles final.

Top seeds Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand successfully defended their women’s doubles title at the Syed Modi International 2025 badminton tournament on Sunday.

Ranked 14th in the world, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand beat Japanese eighth seeds Kaho Osawa and Mai Tanabe 17-21, 21-13, 21-15 in the final at the Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium in Lucknow, which lasted an hour and 16 minutes.

The first game saw Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand trail 11-9 at the interval before conceding the opener.

However, the Indian badminton players battled back into the contest in the second game. They led 11-5 at the interval and pushed the advantage to force a decider.

Riding the momentum, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand pulled away in the decider, storming to an 11-5 lead at the interval before closing out the match to seal their second straight Syed Modi International title.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand had also finished as runners-up in the women’s doubles in the 2022 edition of the Syed Modi International.

The duo also became the first Indian doubles team to win a BWF World Tour title this year. Lakshya Sen and Aysuh Shetty’s men’s singles crowns at the Australian and US Opens are the only other successes for the country’s shuttlers this season.

Meanwhile, former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth’s quest for a first BWF title since the 2017 French Open continued after a heartbreaking 16-21, 21-8, 22-20 defeat against Jason Gunawan of Hong Kong China in the men’s singles final at Lucknow.

After losing the opening game, Kidambi Srikanth dominated world No. 59 Jason Gunawan in the second to take the match into a decider.

The third game saw Kidambi Srikanth save a match point to force a tie-break, which he eventually lost. The defeat to Jason Gunawan was Kidambi Srikanth’s first loss in three meetings against the Hong Kong China shuttler.

Srikanth had previously won the Syed Modi International title in 2016.