Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The journey from Dharwad to Delhi is roughly 1,800km. Ashith Surya and Amrutha Pramuthesh made it in a hurry, leaving a tournament midway after a call from Delhi told them their World Championships dream was suddenly alive. They arrived on Saturday. Four days later, they walked onto court for the biggest match of their lives. And for the next 71 minutes, they lived the dream.
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There was a small group of people in the stands on Tuesday afternoon who had probably never heard of Ashith and Amrutha before. By the end of the match, they were willing the Indian pair to stay alive at every point.
Every time Ashith and Amrutha won a point, the cheers grew a little louder. Every time they reached match point and failed to convert it, a collective ‘aah’ went around the stands. There was disappointment in those sounds, but also something else: the feeling that, for a little while, this was their court, their moment, their World Championships.
WHEN THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CALLS
Ashith and Amrutha had arrived in Delhi almost by accident.
They had been playing at the State Championships in Dharwad when they were told that withdrawals had opened up a place in the World Championships draw. They were on the reserves list and had been promoted to the main draw. The decision was almost immediate. They pulled out of the tournament in Dharwad, packed their bags and made the journey to Delhi.
They arrived only on Saturday.
Other players had been here for days, preparing for the peculiar conditions at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. The likes of PV Sindhu and Ayush Shetty arrived well in advance, getting a feel for the high ceiling and air-conditioning, with the drift proving to be a key factor at these World Championships. Lakshya Sen, meanwhile, had devised a specific plan, training at the National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati, where the air-conditioning and ceiling height were similar to those in Delhi. The big names had time to settle in, find their bearings and acclimatise to the conditions.
Ashith and Amrutha had little of that luxury. They had something else instead: a World Championships debut on home soil.
“This is what we have dreamt about,” Amrutha said. “We never thought we’d get an entry for this, so as soon as we got the news, we were just very happy.”
That was why leaving Dharwad halfway through a tournament did not require much thought.
“This is a much higher tournament, so we are happy about it,” Ashith said.
THE DREAM BEGINS
The opportunity was too big to miss. So they arrived in Delhi, stepped onto the biggest stage of their careers and proceeded to give themselves a chance to create an upset. World No. 60 Ashith and Amrutha took the opening game 21-16 against Turkiye’s Emre Sonmez and Yasemen Bektas, ranked No. 71.
Then came the madness.
The second game went beyond the usual 21 points. The Indians had match point after match point, but could not find the one shot that would end it. Sonmez and Bektas survived six match points before taking the game 30-29.
There were three more match points for the Indians in the decider. Again, the finish line appeared and then disappeared. Turkiye eventually won 24-22, converting their third match point.
The scoreline, 16-21, 30-29, 24-22, tells you how close it was. It does not tell you how agonising it felt.
“We are crushed a bit, sad that we had so many match points and yet we couldn’t take the game,” Amrutha said.
“But also happy at the moment, like we got this opportunity to play here, and we played really well.”
There was no mystery to what went wrong.
“It was not any hard stroke or somewhere we got caught; it was some shuttle which was in our hand where we made a mistake ourselves,” she said.
“So I think if we had been a bit more patient and played it just inside, we could have taken the game.”
Those are the margins that define badminton at this level. A fraction too much on a shot. A moment of impatience. One decision made slightly too quickly.
For an independent pair who have travelled the circuit without the security or visibility that comes with being part of India’s established doubles system, those margins matter even more.
Ashith, 30, and Amrutha, 23, travel to tournaments as a pair on their own. They have spent years playing International Challenge and International Series events with modest results. This year, they began their foray into the HSBC BWF World Tour. They arrived in Delhi after first-round exits at six tournaments in 2026.
Their ranking, and the opportunity to climb it, mattered. They knew what a deep run here could have done for them.
But there was another reality unfolding around them.
They were playing at home.
“When we usually go abroad for tournaments, we don’t have such crowd support,” Ashith said. “Having the crowd support over here, cheering for us, feels really emotional and happy as well. Just sad that we couldn’t convert the game for them.”
The support did not weigh on them, he insisted. It lifted them.
“No, it was supportive actually, rather than pressure. It was motivating us more to push more, and that’s what kept us going in the second and third games.”
That small group of fans may not have known their names when they walked into the arena. They knew them by the time the match was over.
For years, Ashith and Amrutha have been the kind of players who leave home, fly to another country, walk into a hall and play in front of people who have little reason to cheer for them. Here, suddenly, they had a home crowd.
Amrutha admitted she was initially overwhelmed.
“But after coming here, playing here, and with the crowd support — it was incredible,” she said. “It pushed us even harder to keep going. Overall, it was a good experience.”
It was a bittersweet one, too.
There is no need to dress up the defeat. They had nine match points across the second and third games and could not take any of them. They will probably replay some of those points in their heads for a while.
THE DREAM LINGERES
But there is also something valuable in having been there.
They got to feel what it is like when a crowd rises for them. They got to play a World Championships match that lasted 71 minutes. They got to experience the nerves, the pressure, the noise and the possibility of winning a match that, only days earlier, they had not even known they would play.
Perhaps that is what they take back with them.
Not a second-round place. Not the ranking points they came for. Not even the satisfaction of having pushed Turkiye to the edge. An experience. A glimpse of the life they have spent years chasing.
“We never thought we’d get an entry for this,” Amrutha had said.
The dream, for now, ended at the first hurdle. But it lasted 71 minutes.
They had travelled 1,800km to Delhi for it. They leave without a win, but with something they did not have when they set out from Dharwad: the knowledge of what it feels like to belong on this stage.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
