For Rohan Bopanna, it is most probably his last medal at the Asian Games, and for Rutuja Bhosale, probably her first of many.
And the duo gave it a golden hue by winning the mixed doubles event, overcoming Chinese Taipei's Tsung-Hao Huang and En-Shuo Liang 2-6, 6-3, 10-4 on the centre court at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports centre on Saturday.
It turned out to be a match of two contrasting halves for the second seeded Indian pair.
Rutuja, being the less experienced of the two, was the target of the Taiwan team in the first set. Then, from midway through the second set, she started to find her targets.
That made the difference between gold and silver.
With the stocky Liang serving at 3-4 30-40, 27-year-old Rutuja gave India the vital break with a devastating forehand service return down the tramlines. Huang, scintillating throughout the match, moved to the wrong side at the net and was helpless as the fuzzy, yellow sphere whizzed past on his forehand side. Rutuja began to gain confidence and step into the volleys for easy putaways. She would still miss a big one after her legendary partner had set her up nicely, but it would not deter her.
Come championship point, Rutuja, who had been broken in the first set, slammed a perfect ace down the T to seal the gold.
"Rohan said to me, 'give me your best serve'. Whatever we were discussing throughout the competition, it was about hitting the targets and setting it up. So Rohan said I should hit my target now," the Pune girl told TOI after the match.
It must have taken nerves of steel to do so, but in the beginning she was all jangling nerves. The change in conditions, with the roof closed on the centre court at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre, didn't help either.
"The whole match we were nervous and tight. I was a bit more than him, and missed a lot of volleys which Rohan was setting me up," she said. "The ball was playing heavy, too.
"Then we decided to change sides, me and Rohan, in the second set because (until then) I was starting the serve. So I began to play on the left side.
"And I made that back hand return on the girl's (Liang's) serve. That helped a lot, I started moving my legs and started enjoying what I was doing."
For Bopanna, who failed to defend his doubles crown, the mixed gold would make some compensation. At 43, as he keeps rewriting record books on the game's biggest stage, he will cherish every medal, irrespective of the colour, he wins for the country.
Rutuja shared the sentiment. "More than the gold, getting it for the country is what matters to me," she said.
"Everyone is eyeing a medal and the whole nation is watching. For a tennis player, this may not be the only event as we have other tournaments.
"Personally, I never thought Rohan (who paired with Ankita Raina in the last edition in Indonesia) would choose me as his partner. I have watched him play on TV, and exchanged texts here and there. But to be playing with him is itself a huge thing for me."
Rutuja and Ankita were also forced to play three events after the government refused to clear the selection of national champion Vaidehi Chaudhary and Sahaja Yamalapalli, thus reducing the women's squad to four instead of the eligible six.
And the Maharashtrian, who fell in the second round in doubles (partnering Karman Kaur Thandi) and in the third round in singles, said the workload -with Karman also suffering from a niggle -did prove to be a bit more than the duo could handle.
"Playing three matches in a day does make a difference. We could feel that the body is slow to recover after the first day," she said.
