Overview
Jwala Gutta is born and bought in Wardha, Maharashtra. Born on 7th September 1983, she was an ace shuttler. Jwala is a left-handed Badminton player, and began her career in late 1990’s. She represented India in International events, both mixed and woman’s double. She has a total of 316 match wins in both the disciplines- the most by any Indian – and peaked at no. 6 in the world ranking. Gutta has won medals at numerous tournaments on the BWF circuit including a silver at the 2009 Super series Masters Finals and a bronze at the 2011 World Championships.
Early Life
Jwala was born on 7 September 1983 in Wardha, Maharashtra and brought up in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, to a Telugu Indian father and a Chinese mother. Jwala’s father, Kranti Gutta, hailed from a family of freedom fighters and Leftists. Her mother language r, Yelen Gutta, was born in Tianjin, and is a granddaughter of a Gandhian named Tseng. Yelen first came to India in 1977 with her grandfather to visit the Sevagram ashram, where she translated Gandhi’s autobiography and other works into Chinese.
Career
Jwala was inclined to play tennis, but later on she shifted to Badminton at the insistence of her mother. She was introduced to the Nation coach S.M Arif, by his father at the age of four. She was told to take up gymnastics or swimming for a few years before training. Jwala later started the training with Arif, at Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium.
Jwala started playing badminton at the age of six years, and her biggest achievement was winning the Under-13 Girls Mini National Badminton Championship held at Thrissur, Kerala. During the same period, she also won the Women’s Doubles Junior National Championship and the Senior National Badminton Championship, both in partnership with Shruti Kurien.
Her main journey of Badminton started nearly in 2002, and in the early phase she was paired with Shruti Kurien for women’s double competition. The duo reached the semi-final round of their second international tournament itself, the India Asia Satellite tournament 2002. They also reached the semi-final round of the same tournament in the year 2004, and finished runner-up at the Le Volant d’Or Tournament, known as Toulouse Open the same year.
In 2010 Commonwealth games Jwala was paired up Ashwini Ponnappa from Bangalore. She and Ponnappa then went on to win the sensational gold medal in the women’s doubles at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games making history of winning the first gold medal for India in the event. They beat much higher ranked Singaporean pair of Shinta Mulia Sari and Yao Lei in the finals 21–15, 21–19 in front of the cheering home crowd and set the stadium ablaze with their win. In 2011, they came up with one of their finest performances when the pair etched their names in history books becoming the first Indian pair to ensure a medal at the World Badminton Championships. The pair defeated 12th seeds Vita Marrisa and Nadya Melati of Indonesia 17–21, 21–10, 21–17 to storm into the women’s doubles semifinal before losing out to the Chinese fifth seeds in the semi-finals in London, thereby winning a bronze in the Badminton World Championship. She played women’s doubles as well as mixed doubles at the 2012 London Olympics becoming the first and the only Indian to qualify in two events in the entire history of the game. Gutta pairing with Ashwini Ponappa lost their opening women’s doubles match against the Japanese duo of Mizuki Fuji and Reika Kakiiwa. They then went on to beat the much higher ranked Cheng wen- hsing and Chein Yu-Chin of Chinese Taipei 25–23, 16–21, 21–18 to register their first win in the group stages.
In January 2013, Gutta announced her comeback to the game and partnered Prajakta Sawant since Ponnappa was partnering with Pradnya Gadre and had committed to continue her partnership with Gadre so went on play with Sawant, who at that time was going through a battle against national coach Pullela Gopichand. Indian Badminton League (IBL) was announced the same year. In 2014 Gutta and Ashwini won the bronze medal at Asian Championships in April defeating 3rd seeded Thai pair of Kunchala Voravichitchaikul and Duanganong Aroonkesorn 21–11, 21–18 en route losing out to Chinese twins Luo Ying and Luo Yu at the semi-final stage. Gutta and Ashwini kicked started 2015 with a semi-final appearance at 2015 India Open Grand Prix Gold held at Lucknow. They next appeared in the prestigious All England Open reached the 2nd round losing out to the top seeds Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei in straight games. The pair of Gutta and Ponnappa also re-entered the Top-20 rankings after All England. Gutta began her 2016 with the Premier Badminton League, where she represented Hyderabad Hunters alongside Lee Chong Wei and Parupalli Kashyap. She played in the mixed doubles alongside Indonesian Markis Kido and Danish Carsten Mogensen. The team couldn’t qualify for the knock-out stage, finishing fifth in the standings.
In May, Gutta was part of the Indian team for the 2016 Thomas & Uber Cup held at Kunshan, China. The Indian women’s team was put into Group- D alongside Japan, Germany and Australia. The India team beat Germany and Australia 5–0 before losing out to Japan to finish second in the group. In the quarter-finals they came back from a 0–1 deficit after Saina Nehwal lost the first singles to beat Thailand 3–1. Gutta and Ponnappa won their match in straight sets to secure a semifinal berth and the team’s second consecutive bronze medal. The Indian team was however beaten by eventual champions China in the semifinal stage.
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