HS Prannoy brought in a lifetime’s grit, an unapologetic attack and 68 minutes of tactical brilliance to the court as he completely out-thought, out-manoeuvred and outplayed defending champion Viktor Axelsen 13-21, 21-15, 21-16 in the quarterfinals to secure a coveted medal at the World Championships. He finished with a standing ovation from the Copenhagen crowd that couldn’t help but appreciate the incisive way in which their home hero was humbled by the brilliant Indian.

First Prannoy lulled Axelsen into believing he had a grip on this quarterfinal, as he took his time to adjust to the cadence of the rallies and fell back in the opener 21-13. Then the Indian Top Tenner started turning the screws, and teased out one error after another, from long, languorous rallies to build up a lead in the second set and exert pressure of trailing on the Dane. At the Japan Open last month, when Prannoy stole a 21-19 opening set from Axelsen, he had sowed enough seeds of doubt. On a furiously exacting Friday at the World’s with Axelsen under pressure at home, Prannoy could reap the benefits of leaving Axelsen with a weary, wary feeling that day in Japan, having sent across the message that he had shots in his arsenal to deeply trouble him.

Making the big man retrieve really low shots at the net, and sending off enough deep smashes to leave him unsteady and unsure at the back of the court, alternating this theme with untiring persistence, Prannoy neatly built a demon into Axelsen’s head. And then when the errors came in casual and desperate, he turned the knife in the third.

India had just suffered the shocking exit of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty to the Danish pair of Astrup-Rasmussen and were in danger of leaving the World Championships without a medal for the first time since 2010. But deep in Axelsen’s heart and in the nervous crowd, they knew that Prannoy could make his life in this edition terribly difficult, and pick that medal. The Indian took his time in long rallies, picking Axelsen’s snappy attack – once with a 360 pirouette but often with side dives – to chomp into the Dane’s reassurance that his range of shots were adequate. They weren’t. And after the second set where he made too many errors, or was driven to err by the Indian, he was left telling his coaches that Prannoy was reading all his attack, and he was running out of options.

Central to Prannoy’s success was his command at the net. There were fewer fancy strokes, just hard nosed tight dribbles and counter dribbles, and no amount of menace of Axelsen’s famed smashes made him back off from the net. Because he was unflappable at the net and stealing errors from there too, Axelsen was forced to go for the extravagant attack, and progressively tiring, the 29-year-old would smash into the net often or drift wide.

At 4-5 in the second, Prannoy missed a cross smash to seal a 40 shot rally, but rest of the resurgent set, he revved up on the straight, no-holds-barred smashing attack. Axelsen is tall and has a mighty defensive range on the flanks, but it must’ve been an intimidating sight to watch Prannoy add ounces of power with each subsequent stroke in a rally as he approached the net on followups.