Coach Vimal Kumar impressed with Kiran George’s rise

Former international feels the youngster could get into the World’s top-30 in a couple of years

Five years ago, when he won the silver at the under-17 Asians in Indonesia, Kiran George appeared to be in a hurry to climb the men’s ladder in Indian badminton quickly. He was just 16 then but he did not want to spend much time on the junior circuit. Kiran is now just below the top-100 in the men’s world rankings but is showing the country where he actually belongs. The 21-year-old topped the Badminton Association of India’s recent trials in Hyderabad to select the Indian team for this month’s Sudirman Cup and Thomas Cup in Denmark in October. Players ranked in the World’s top-20 were exempted. Still the trials, which raised many eyebrows and much noise, had some big names like Lakshya Sen (World No. 24), Sameer Verma (28) and H.S. Prannoy (30) in the men’s section. And Kiran defeated Sameer, Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram to finish on top.