In the second, the Indian pair went for broke at the fag end and levelled the game but the Danes mixed attack with defence to advance to the last four and guarantee themselves a silver.

CHENNAI: HS Prannoy dipped into his hat and found a colony of rabbits as the Indian shuttler engineered a sensational takedown of World No 1, Viktor Axelsen. In the process, Prannoy guaranteed at least a bronze medal at the ongoing World Championships (at least one Indian has medalled at every edition of the Worlds since 2011).

The match was going as per script after the Dane, playing in front of a raucous home crowd at the Royal Arena, had won the first game 21-13. That’s when Prannoy, shoulder heavily strapped after taking a tumble recently, cut the errors from his game.

HS Prannoy returns to Viktor Axelsen during the match on Friday | AP

Instead, Axelsen, who has always found Prannoy an awkward opponent (a lot of their H2Hs have gone the full distance), was the one making the errors. With the crowd letting out nervous energy, the 31-year-old knew he was on the road to picking up his first Worlds medal. What he successfully did was he didn’t allow the defending champion the space to unleash those damaging smashes from the back court.He kept maneuvering him from side to side as well as sent him to the back court on odd occasions; in a way, he kept him guessing. In short, the final scoreline of 13-21, 21-15, 21-16 wasn’t a surprise.

In fact, in the third game, the expected Axelsen fightback never came as Prannoy controlled the tempo of the rallies. Whenever rallies exceeded any significant length, the Indian was in control of its destiny. In the end, that proved to be the difference.

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However, it was a mixed day as the second-seeded pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost out to Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen.  

While history favoured the Danes — they had enjoyed a 5-2 H2H against the Indians — these two pairs hadn’t faced each other for almost two years. In the intervening period, the Danes had slipped while the Indians had steadily climbed the ladder of success. This year alone, they had claimed four titles, including their first BWF World Tour 1000 in Indonesia.

None of that counted as the World No. 11 showcased their world-class defending skills to upstage the younger pair in straight games (21-18, 21-19). Roared on by the most partisan of crowds, they kept putting shuttles back in play. With both Indian players feeling the pressure, the unforced errors count from their racquets was one of the constant themes in the match. Whenever they looked to build some pressure, a couple of errors allowed the Danes to maintain a stranglehold on the situation. In fact, even if the scoreboard suggests two closely-fought games, the Astrup-Rasmussen combined had substantial early leads in both stanzas (11-6 in the opener and 11-7 in the second game).

In the second, the Indian pair went for broke at the fag end and levelled the game but the Danes mixed attack with defence to advance to the last four and guarantee themselves a silver. For Rankireddy and Shetty, this is an opportunity missed. If they had advanced to the final, they would have become the new World No. 1. If they had won, they would have also become the first men from India to have multiple Worlds medals. Now, it’s back to the drawing board before two extreme tests in China (Super 1000 before the Asian Games in Hangzhou) in one month.