There is a bit of rustiness when playing badminton at the topmost level that hits you smack, rather than slithers into the system. HS Prannoy might have played and won plenty in his career, but the stop-start nature of sustaining peak performance and dealing with a patched-up body from years of injuries, can suddenly strike mid-match and see plans come apart in a blink.
The combined age on the court at the China Open Round of 16 when Prannoy played Chou Tien Chen was 68 – the Taiwanese is 35, two years older than the Indian. But Chou’s phenomenal playing rate on the circuit (24 tournaments in last year) is more than any other Top 30 shuttler — beyond inspirational for a cancer survivor. With his incredible fitness, he plays week in, week out, and is extremely challenging early on in any tournament with his consistent Top 5 levels. Prannoy hence couldn’t do much after taking a 21-18, 9-7 lead, to stop the freakishly brilliant opponent from maintaining his non-stop form, as he went down 21-18, 15-21, 8-21.
Prannoy won the opener, and promptly exhausted his reserves, having come this far in the Super1000 on the back of a stupendous 5 match-point saving win in Round 1. He could hammer flatter smashes down the middle and work in bursts of energy, but Chou only had to pick on his backhand low flank defense, and his resistance would come undone in a stream of 6 consecutive points taken by his opponent to go from 13-13 to 13-19 in the second set.
Chou Tien Chen and H.S. Prannoy clash for a quarterfinals spot. 🏸 #BWFWorldTour #ChinaOpen2025 pic.twitter.com/IkvPxhhznB
— BWF (@bwfmedia) July 24, 2025
The third set didn’t amount to much, but Prannoy highlighted an important form of exhaustion / rustiness / lack of finishing finesse that sets in if you haven’t played enough on the Tour. When BWF asked him if the third set was owing to endurance troubles, he said, “Maybe ..but today I didn’t feel it was physical. Because the third game the way it went off, hardly one or two long rallies out there. The kind of play against high quality opponents like this frequently is very important. Then you know what kind of pressure is going to come. Third game first half…” he trailed off, as his 4-11 in decider near flatlined and he was gone in 65 long short-minutes.
Chou can do that to opponents – always threaten to come back, always lurk to pounce, always pick on small weaknesses and unleash a flurry to upend momentums, if you are even slightly off your top fitness. “Hadn’t really trained before this week. So considering that a decent performance but really frustrated that probably could have played a little better innthe third set. It just went out in a whisker. Should have made it a little more neck to neck,” Prannoy would tell BWF.
The piercing pace aside, Prannoy couldn’t find the rhythm in the decider and was a goner soon. “Probably second game was crucial there,” Prannoy correctly read the situation. “I was finding it a little tough to play in third set..I was not getting the length at the back all of a sudden. Just felt it was too tight at the net. He was pushing from the net. Credit to him, he put the pressure. Second probably should have kept it a little tighter and made the game longer. But that patch of 5 points (16) from 12-all (13) made a big difference,” he concluded.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
