HS Prannoy is surely in a dream he might not want to wake up from. After having beaten Taufik Hidayat, he now meets world No 1 lee Chong Wei in the quarterfinals.
Malaysian Wei had made it a “dream tournament” for Prannoy as he “gets to play Taufik and lee Chong back-to-back” by beating Kazumasa Sakai of Japan 21-17, 21-9 on Thursday evening.
And, Prannoy owes it all to his almost hero worship of Taufik and hence watching his videos since childhood. “I have been watching his videos since I was a kid. It was a long-time dream to play him. I wasn’t thinking of beating him. I was just happy to play him,” said the 20-year-old Indian, who definitely sounded in awe of his opponent but hardly gave him any chance to pose a major threat in his 26-24, 21-9 win.
From the moment the play began on Court 1, Prannoy started building towards a lead. The Indian was at the brink of taking the first game, score at 20-19, when Taufik showed his class by engaging his opponent in a long rally. He dived twice, stretched himself for every return to keep the game on and eventually made it 20 each.
The game then kept dwindling from gamepoint in one’s favour to another, both entertaining the spectators well by hitting powerful cross-court smashes, down the line shots and athleticism. But in the end Taufik ended up on the losing side as his errors saw Prannoy take the all-important lead in the match by taking the game 26-24.
By that time it seemed Taufik had no desire to fight back or maybe the idea of clawing his way back into the match against such a lower-ranked opponent didn’t tempt him as much as it did against a higher-ranked Kashyap a day earlier.
So the second game turned out to be as unpredictable as Taufik’s famous mood. For, no one would have expected him to go down 9-21. “He is a moody player. The day he wants to win he would try anything,” Prannoy said as much. And, for all practical purposes, Taufik actually didn’t even try to win anything in the decider. He kept giving away points by hitting it into the net or outside.
Watching Taufik’s videos surely kept Prannoy in good stead throughout. “I know the way he plays. He is very good at net. So, I just tried to make him play the forehand and at baseline,” he said, also crediting Kashyap for giving valuable tips.
later, it was Sai Praneeth’s turn to keep the spectators hooked. After losing the first game to Malaysia’s Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin 16-21, Praneeth showed such a spirit that his every dive, every fall and every shot was cheered as loudly as possible.
As a result he not only refused to give up and worked hard to win every point but also forced his opponent into making errors and thus took the match into the third game by winning the second 29-27. And, that had given him enough energy to enter the last-eight stage by taking the third game 21-16. He now meets sixth seed Japan’s Kenichi, who beat Sourabh Varma 19-21, 21-16, 21-14.
And, Anand Pawar provided the cherry on the cake by beating third seed Yun Hu of Hong Kong 21-15, 15-21, 21-10.
let’s hope the home boys keep the fighting spirit alive.