Jwala Gutta in Olympics 2012 London Photos

Jwala Gutta, గుత్తా జ్వాలా, is a left-handed Indian badminton player of mixed Indian and Chinese descent who has won the National Badminton Championships thirteen times until 2010.   Indian doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa are out of the Olympics 2012 officially. This after an appeal by Indian duo that a Japan-Chinese Taipei match in their group seemed fixed was rejected today. Eight players in the women's doubles event were disqualified today for throwing away their matches.

She is a doubles badminton player who has partnered with Shruti Kurien and later Ashwini Ponnappa. She was the wife of Chetan Anand, an Arjuna Awardee; however, the two divorced in 2011. According to a survey Jwala Gutta has surpassed the badminton sensation Saina Nehwal on the popularity charts.

 During her Badminton career, Jwala Gutta began dating fellow badminton player Chetan Anand, who was the 1999 Junior National Badminton Champion and 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2010 Senior National Badminton Champion and has been honored with an Arjuna Award. The couple married on 17 July 2005 and got divorced on 29th June 2011.

In the doubles event though, her performance has been better as entered the Semi Final round of her second International Doubles tournament, the India Asia Satellite tournament 2002. She also reached the Semi Final round of the Indian Asian Satellite tournament 2004, and finished Runner Up at the LE VOLANT D’OR Tournament, known as TOULOUSE Open in the year 2004. Further, she reached the Final Rounds of the Scottish International tournament 2004 and 40th Portuguese Badminton Championship 2004.

In the year 2006 she won the Sri Lanka International Satellite tournament while in the year 2007 she won the Cyprus Badminton International tournament. The same year, she also won at the Pakistan International Challenge tournament and the Indian International Challenge tournament. Apart from these achievements, Jwala won the Nepal International Series tournament 2008 and Yonex Dutch Open Grand Prix 2008 in the Women’s Doubles category. She won a Gold medal in Women Doubles in Commonwealth Games 2010 making history of winning the 1st gold medal in women doubles. Later on this year she again made a history by being the 1st women doubles pair to win a bronze medal in world championships 2011.

She played in women's doubles as well as in mixed doubles in London Olympics. Jwala pairing Ashwini Ponappa lost their opening women's double match against the Japanese duo of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa at the London Olympics badminton tournament on 28 July 2012.

Jawla in Mixed Doubles

In the Mixed Doubles category too, Jwala has shown her excellence as she has grabbed the titles in the Jakarta Satellite tournament and Welsh International tournament in the year 2005, Sri Lanka International Satellite tournament, Cyprus Badminton International tournament and Indian International Challenge tournament in the year 2007, and Nepal International Series tournament, Bitburger Open Grand Prix tournament and KLRC Bulgaria Open Grand Prix tournament in the year 2008. But the latest achievement in December 2009 where she and her mixed doubles partner Valiyaveetil Diju reached the World Super Series masters final in Malaysia, where they went down to world championship bronze medalists Christinna Pedersen and Joaquim Nielsen 21-14, 21-18.Jwala also won a gold medal in the prestigious Commonwealth Games 2010 which was held in India. Pairing V. Diju, Jwala lost her opening match 16-21, 12-21 in just 25 minutes at the Wembley Arena in London Olympics.