These matches mark the end of an Olympic qualification campaign that started with the Asian Games in August and September 2018. Both teams were the highest ranked teams going into the event and were hence favourites to win gold, which would have helped them secure direct qualification to Tokyo 2020.
However, it was Japan who ended up winning gold in both events and while the women finished with silver, the men could only take bronze. The women's team lost the final 2-1 to Japan while the men lost to Malaysia in the semi-finals on penalty shootout and then beat Pakistan 2-1 in the bronze medal match.
The failure to win gold put India on a year-long path to seal Olympic qualification which has culminated in the ongoing qualifiers in Bhubaneswar. The first stop for the team would have been the FIH Pro League with teams finishing in the top two of the event sealing direct qualification to the Olympics. However Hockey India voluntarily opted out of the Pro League. There were no official reasons for doing so but it was reported that the pull out was due to a lack of clarity over Olympic qualification process among other things.
This meant that the teams had to first play and win the FIH Series finals and hope for a favourable draw, particularly the women's team because of their world ranking at the time of number 9.
The Series Finals were held in June 2019 with the women's tournament taking place in Hiroshima, Japan and the men's tournament taking place in Bhubaneswar. They both won the tournament and thus sealed a place in the Olympic qualifiers.
Importantly, the women's team's world ranking of ninth remained intact and they maintained their place within the top 10 of the world rankings. This meant that when the seeding came for the draw for the qualifiers, both the men's and women's teams were among the first two spots, reserved for the hosts. It meant that they would be playing at home against a lower-ranked opposition.
14 teams entered the draw for the qualifiers. Half of those qualified based on performances in Pro League and Series Finals. The rest entered on the basis of their rankings. This meant that the lowest ranked team in men's and women's segments were Russia at no. 22 and no. 19 respectively.
The draw was declared on September 9 and the Indian men's team were to take on the 22nd-ranked Russia and the women were to face the 13th ranked USA.
( With inputs from IANS )