We study a scenario for the disappearance of hyperbolicity of invariant tori in a class of quasi-periodic systems. In this scenario, the system loses hyperbolicity because two invariant directions come close to each other, losing their regularity. In a recent paper, based on numerical results, Haro and de la Llave (2006 Chaos 16 013120) discovered a quantitative universality in this scenario, namely, that the minimal angle between the two invariant directions has a power law dependence on the parameters and the exponents of the power law are universal. We present an analytic proof of this result.