Early years: 2002–09 Gutta partnered
Shruti Kurien-Kanetkar during the early part of her career for the women's doubles 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. Further, she reached the Final Rounds of the Scottish International tournament 2004 and 40th Portuguese Badminton Championship 2004. and added that "This medal will silence my critics. This is my answer to them to whatever happened. I am very happy and everyone who has negative thoughts about me, I would like to say just shut-up now,"
2011: World Championships bronze 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. They had previously beaten
Poon Lok Yan and
Tse Ying Suet of
Hong Kong 19–21, 21–17, 21–19 in Round of 16. Also, in the second round they had caused a big upset by beating the 2nd seeds and former World Num 1s.
Cheng Wen-hsing Chien Yu-chin of
Chinese Taipei 21–18 21–18. In a 2016 report published by
Sportskeeda, the feat was ranked as the fifth greatest achievement of Indian badminton. Gutta pairing with Ashwini Ponappa lost their opening women's doubles match against the Japanese duo of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa. They then went on to beat the much higher ranked
Cheng Wen-hsing and
Chien Yu-chin of Chinese Taipei 25–23, 16–21, 21–18 to register their first win in the group stages. Gutta and Ashwini missed out on a quarterfinal berth by a difference of just one point, even though they beat
Shinta Mulia Sari and Lei Yao of Singapore 21–16 21–15 in their last group B match, after tying with Japan and Taipei on the number of wins. Prior to India's final group game on Tuesday night, the World number five Japanese pair of Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa had shockingly lost to Chinese Taipei's Cheng Wen Hsing and Chien Yu Chin, ranked 10th, 19–21 11–21. India lodged a formal protest with the Games organisers to probe if the women's doubles badminton match involving Japan and Chinese Taipei was played in the right spirit, following the elimination of medal hopes Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa but no action was taken. Following the Olympic Games, Gutta went to a temporary sabbatical from the game.
2013: Comeback and IBL 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. IBL was a franchise league commercially managed by an Indian sports rights management company, Sporty Solutionz as commercial partners. With the brand value of US$1 million, Indian Badminton League was the richest badminton league in the world. Gutta was one of the six marquee players and team captains to be auctioned. The auction itself was not short of controversy. The base price of Gutta and
Ashwini Ponnappa was halved from US$50,000 to US$25,000, without the players' notice and Women's Doubles event was replaced by a second Men's Singles. This left both Gutta and Ashwini hurt and angry. Gutta was bought for US$31,000 and captained the
Delhi franchise, but the team did not reach the semis and finished fifth. Gutta and Ponnappa after IBL confirmed on that they were set to reunite. Gutta went on to add that the two decided to come together because of a couple of reasons. The first was the Indian Badminton League's organisers knocking out the women's doubles category from the tournament, which in turn resulted in the base prices of Gutta and Ashwini.
2014: Asian and Uber Cup bronze, CWG silver 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. The pair played a key role in
India's historic Bronze at the
Uber Cup in New Delhi. The duo unleashed a giant-killing spree as they had to face much higher ranked opponents in most of their matches and they won each, their biggest win came when outplayed the World No. 9 team of
Greysia Polii and
Nitya Krishinda Maheswari 21–18, 21–18 from
Indonesia in the first doubles match of the tie. The win took India to the semis for the first time in
Uber Cup history and assured them of the bronze medal. They later participated at the
2014 Commonwealth Games and narrowly missed the podium finish in the team event came up with the silver medal at the games losing put to Malaysian pair of
Vivian Hoo and
Woon Khe Wei in a closely contested final. The Indian pair lost the first game 17–21, before going down in a well-fought second game. Gutta and Ponnappa had taken the lead and looked good to take the match into the deciding third game. It was their second medal at the games after the
2010 Gold.
2015: Canada GP title and top-10 ranking Gutta and Ashwini kick-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. In May, Gutta played for
India at the
2015 Sudirman Cup as they were placed in group 1D, clubbed together with three-time winner
Korea and
Malaysia. The Malaysian team was buoyed by the return of former world no. 1
Lee Chong Wei from a dope-related suspension and that made things difficult for India. India started with a narrow 2–3 loss to Malaysia
Saina Nehwal and the duo of Gutta and Ponnappa delivered the wins. Gutta and Ashwini stole the show with their determined efforts that saw them upsetting the world no. 11 pair of
Vivian Hoo and
Woon Khe Wei 21–18, 19–21, 21–15. After the narrow defeat against
Malaysia, India needed to win the tie v Korea to progress into the quarter-finals.
Parupalli Kashyap and the men's doubles pair of
Pranav Chopra and
Akshay Dewalkar lost both their matches the onus was once again on Gutta and Ponnappa. They fought hard but it was not enough to topple the Koreans. Chang Ye Na and
Jung Kyung-eun won the contest 18–21, 21–12, 21–12 to seal a 3–1 victory for Korea. With defeats in both the rubbers India failed to make the quarter-finals. Gutta and Ashwini then participated in the
2015 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold and the pair seeded 4th reached the semi-finals losing out to Japanese pair of Ayane Kurihara and Naru Shinoya 17–21, 11–21. En route to semis they did not lose a single game and defeated Turkish pair of
Neslihan Yiğit and
Özge Bayrak 21–10, 21–18 and in the quarter-finals defeated German seventh seeds Johanna Goliszewski and Carla Nelte 21–17, 21–14. The pair next participated in the
2015 Canada Open Grand Prix and seeded third went on to win the title defeating top seeded Dutch pair of Eefje Muskens and Selena Piek 21–19, 21–16. It was the pairs first title since coming back together after the
2012 Olympics. The win was commended by the Indian media as the duo were the only women's doubles pair from the country to win a Grand Prix title. Gutta expressed her concerns for lack of support for doubles in the country and prompted the association and the government to promote doubles. Gutta told
NDTV in an interview, "We though big wins would wake up concerned people but it hasn't happened yet. We are still confident of representing India at an international level but here, extra support is needed as we can't afford it on our own. Continuing their good form Gutta and Ponnappa reached the quarter-final stage of the
2015 BWF World Championships. The pair received a bye in the first round and defeated Hsieh Pei-chen and Wu Ti-jung of Chinese Taipei in straight sets. In the last 16 clash the pair stunned world no. 6 pair of
Reika Kakiiwa and
Miyuki Maeda from Japan 21–15, 18–21, 21–19. The pair missed out on the bronze medal after losing out to another Japanese pair of
Naoko Fukuman and
Kurumi Yonao. The quarter-final finish at the World Championships helped Gutta and Ponnappa jump 2 places in the
BWF World Ranking, and they entered the top 10 for the first time in their career. With this Gutta thus became the first player to be ranked in the Top-10 of the world rankings in both the doubles category.
2016: PBL & Second Uber Cup Bronze 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. ==Performance in mixed doubles==