It was fitting that the match schedule at the India Open Super 750 had HS Prannoy as the first Indian shuttler in action. In the last year, with the inconsistent Lakshya Sen and Srikanth Kidambi along with the struggling PV Sindhu, Prannoy has emerged as the leading singles player from the country, currently the only one in the top 10 of the world rankings.

Stepping onto the court on a cold Tuesday morning in Delhi, Prannoy was red hot as he overcame tricky former World No.2 Chou Tien Chen in straight games to seal his place in the second round.

In their last seven meetings, Prannoy and Chou had played four three-game contests that went upwards of an hour. There are rarely one-sided matches between them, but Prannoy started in fifth gear to race through the opening game. Knowing what was potentially on the cards for the remainder of the match, he didn’t take his foot off the pedal. But even when things got tighter in Game 2 in which Prannoy trailed 8-14, he kept fighting and made the necessary tweaks to emerge on top in straight games 21-6, 21-19.

#IndiaOpen2024 #IndiaOpenSuper750

For those who missed it, here’s the point with which HS Prannoy won the opening game 21-6. A remarkable exchange at the net! Said later he can’t recall that ever happened with him. CTC was quite shell-shocked.

Video: BWF YouTube pic.twitter.com/NicBUGynZt

— Vinayakk (@vinayakkm) January 16, 2024

Indeed, continuing to fight and making tweaks as required is why Prannoy is where he is today.

India No.1, finally

Someone who has been around for more than a decade and registered some of the biggest match wins in Indian badminton history, Prannoy was never the leading man. His talent was undeniable, as he won a Youth Olympics silver, beat the likes of Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei, Chen Long and Taufik Hidayat… but was never quite the flag-bearer for Indian men’s singles.

There was Parupalli Kashyap, who led the way around 2013-14, there was Srikanth who climbed to the very top later in the decade, there was B Sai Praneeth briefly in the spotlight with his World Championships bronze and Tokyo Olympics qualification, and then there was even one from the much younger brigade in Sen who shot up as high as No.6 in the world.

But in January 2023, a few months after turning 30, Prannoy was India’s No.1 men’s singles shuttler, finally. He took the scenic route, but got there eventually.

“I wasn’t disappointed that I was No.2 or No.3 but I always knew that I had to do something different than the current crop of players to probably be the best,” Prannoy told The Indian Express. “I had realised it way before but didn’t have the guts to actually do anything about it. I was scared to try new things and tried to just push on with things that I knew.”

But around 2020-21, he realised that he was entering the last-chance territory to take a step up in his career. So he had to change things up. A lot of it was about getting physically fitter and getting to the bottom of health issues that bothered him. But mentally too, he had to switch things around; to make himself unafraid to try new things and get his mind in tune with his body.

“I have been patient with the process, as I realised that a certain type of training works for you or doesn’t. But unless you try, you can never find out. I am able to communicate with my team better, there have been constant changes that we try out in training and all that has made the difference,” Prannoy said.

Badminton is often considered a sport for young and healthy bodies, and so it is all the more remarkable that Prannoy managed to achieve all that this late in his career. The usually inscrutable Pullela Gopichand, the national coach, allows himself a moment to reflect on that feat.

“I think he is a real hero in my heart. Really proud of him, when I talk about him I feel a special emotion,” Gopichand, who has played a key role throughout Prannoy’s career, said. “He has always been level-headed but was unfortunate sometimes in the past when health issues flared up. He has understood his body a lot better over the years. He has been consistently around this performance level the whole time. The medals at the Worlds and Asian Games in 2023 were really important for him, along with the Thomas Cup. I am happy for him. I do believe with God’s grace and good health. He can beat anybody in the world.”

There was a time when Prannoy recalls being disappointed that even when he did well, he was somehow not in the forefront. The 2017 Indonesia Open comes to mind. Prannoy had an incredible tournament defeating Anthony Ginting, Lee Chong Wei and Chen Long back to back – all higher-ranked than him – but then lost to Kazumasa Sakai. However, in the other half, Srikanth – in the middle of the season of his life – went on to win the title.

“I have never really over-analysed being India No.1 now, but there were times when some of my performances didn’t come out because there were others who performed better than me. That way, I felt a little bad at times that sometimes a good result also doesn’t come out in the news (smiles). But I took that in my stride,” Prannoy reflects.

Overcoming Chou

At India’s home tournament, Prannoy’s best finish has been the quarterfinals but he now stands a chance to go deep. Winning more titles on tour is a target he has set for himself, beyond worrying about rankings. And that quest was off to a good start, despite him recovering from the flu that impacted him in Malaysia last week.

“The planning was spot on in the first game. I was able to execute a lot of my shots from the backcourt and understood that he wasn’t able to get this length right. Before he could correct it, I wanted to wrap it up and that helped in saving some energy for the rest of the match,” Prannoy said.

In Game 2, Chou recovered and injected more speed into his shots, finishing a lot of points from the back of the court. He was starting to hit good crosscourt smashes from the backhand side and opened up a healthy lead. “The instructions were to get him close to the net and then push him back. That worked when I was trailing 11-16. Toward the end of the game, I didn’t hit anything hard, just tried to play softer shots. If it goes to a third game, it is always tough with Chou.”

Prannoy, fresh enough from his exploits on Tuesday, will next face a younger shuttler who looks up to him as an elder brother in Priyanshu Rajawat. And he will do so as the man leading India’s charge towards the Paris Olympics.