For more than a decade, Ashwini Ponnappa was the power at the back of the court in Indian women’s doubles. With Jwala Gutta she won Commonwealth Games gold in Delhi in 2010 and, a year later, a World Championships bronze in London, a medal no Indian women’s doubles pair would match for fifteen years. She went on to play at three Olympic Games and remained a fixture in India’s team events well into her thirties.
Name: Ashwini Ponnappa | Born: 18 September 1989, Bangalore | Sport: Badminton | Event: Women’s doubles, mixed doubles
A hockey family in Bangalore
Ponnappa was born in Bangalore into a Kodava family with roots in Kodagu, the hill district of Karnataka known for producing hockey players and soldiers. Her father had played hockey for India, and the sport was the obvious path for a strong, athletic girl. She chose badminton instead. She studied at St. Francis Xavier Girls High School in Bangalore and later at St. Mary’s College in Hyderabad.
Her early years in the sport ran through national age-group competitions. She won national doubles titles at sub-junior level in 2004 and 2005, then junior doubles titles in 2006 and 2007. Coaches at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy noted her fitness and strength as a junior, qualities that would define her game.
The partnership with Jwala Gutta
Around 2009, Jwala Gutta needed a new partner after splitting from Shruti Kurien, and Ponnappa stepped in. The roles were clear from the start. Gutta, with her sharp hands, controlled the net. Ponnappa ran down the back court and hit hard from there. The two personalities differed as well, Gutta outspoken and Ponnappa quiet and measured, but on court the combination worked quickly.
They reached the final of the India Open in 2010, an early sign of what was coming. For much of their time together they were ranked inside the world’s top 20, and in August 2015 they reached a career-high ranking of 10.
Gold in Delhi, bronze in London
The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi gave the pair their breakthrough on home soil. In the women’s doubles final they beat Singapore’s top seeds, Shinta Mulia Sari and Yao Lei, 21-16, 21-19 to take gold. Ponnappa also won silver in the mixed team event at the same Games, and the gold changed the way she was seen at home almost overnight.
At the 2011 BWF World Championships in London, Gutta and Ponnappa reached the semi-finals and came away with bronze. It was the first world medal for an Indian women’s doubles pair, and it stood alone until Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won bronze at the 2026 World Championships in New Delhi. The result also carried them to the London 2012 Olympics with real expectations.
Three Olympic Games
London did not go to plan. The pair lost their opening group match to Japan’s Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa, who went on to win silver. They beat Cheng Wen-hsing and Chien Yu-chin of Chinese Taipei but missed the quarter-finals on tiebreak margins. At Rio 2016 they lost all three group matches, and the partnership ended later that year.
Ponnappa missed the Tokyo Games and stepped away from women’s doubles for a period, playing mixed doubles instead. She returned to the women’s event in 2023 with the much younger Tanisha Crasto. Their rise was rapid: they won the Nantes International, the Abu Dhabi Masters and the Guwahati Masters in 2023 and reached the finals of the Syed Modi International and the Odisha Masters. That run earned a place at Paris 2024, her third Olympics. They lost all three group matches, the last 15-21, 10-21 to Australia’s Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu. Afterwards Ponnappa said Paris would be her last Olympics, explaining that she could not go through the emotional toll again.
Mixed doubles and team events
Ponnappa was a regular in mixed doubles throughout her career, partnering players including Valiyaveetil Diju, Tarun Kona, B. Sumeeth Reddy and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy. With Rankireddy she climbed to 19 in the world mixed doubles rankings in February 2021. At the 2010 South Asian Games in Dhaka she won mixed doubles gold with Diju.
Team badminton brought her several more medals. She won Uber Cup bronze in 2014 and 2016, team bronze at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, and gold with India’s mixed team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, where she also took women’s doubles bronze with N. Sikki Reddy. She added a mixed team silver at Birmingham in 2022, and in 2024 was part of the India side that won the Badminton Asia Team Championships for the first time.
After Paris
Paris marked the end of her Olympic career rather than her playing days. Later in 2024 she and Crasto returned to the circuit and defended their Guwahati Masters title in December. Crasto said she was committed to the partnership for as long as Ponnappa kept playing.
Ponnappa received the Arjuna Award in 2012. She married Karan Medappa in December 2017.
Career record and honours
- BWF World Championships: bronze, women’s doubles, London 2011 (with Jwala Gutta)
- Commonwealth Games: gold, women’s doubles, Delhi 2010; silver, mixed team, 2010; silver, women’s doubles, Glasgow 2014; gold, mixed team, Gold Coast 2018; bronze, women’s doubles, 2018 (with N. Sikki Reddy); silver, mixed team, Birmingham 2022
- Asian Games: bronze, women’s team, Incheon 2014
- Badminton Asia Championships: bronze, women’s doubles, 2014 (with Gutta)
- Badminton Asia Team Championships: gold, women’s team, 2024
- Uber Cup: bronze, 2014 and 2016
- South Asian Games: gold, mixed doubles and women’s team, 2010; gold, women’s doubles and women’s team, 2016
- Olympic Games: London 2012, Rio 2016 (with Gutta); Paris 2024 (with Tanisha Crasto)
- Titles include the Canada Open 2015 (with Gutta), Nantes International 2023, Abu Dhabi Masters 2023, Guwahati Masters 2023 and 2024 (with Crasto)
- Best world rankings: 10 in women’s doubles (2015), 19 in mixed doubles (2021)
- Arjuna Award: 2012
