Korea Masters 2024 badminton: Kiran George’s impressive run ends in semi-finals
The unseeded Indian shuttler stretched the Paris 2024 silver medallist and the reigning world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the second game but ultimately fell short.
Badminton
Kiran George, the only Indian badminton player competing at the Korea Masters 2024, lost to Paris 2024 Olympics silver medallist Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand in the semi-finals of the men’s singles event in Iksan on Saturday.
The 24-year-old Indian shuttler, 41st in the badminton rankings, went down against his world No. 5 Thai opponent with a 21-12, 21-20 scoreline in 53 minutes.
The two badminton players started on equal footing with the scores tied at 5-5. Kunlavut Vitidsarn pulled away with a four-point streak to seize control and went on to clinch the opening game.
The second game also began with a similar pattern. The scores were tied at 4-4 before Kunlavut Vitidsarn raced ahead to make it 13-4. However, Kiran George, playing in his first semi-final of the 2024 badminton season, fought back to level at 20-20, only for the reigning world champion to edge him out in the final two points.
Earlier at the Korea Masters, a BWF Super 300 event, the unseeded Kiran George got the better of fifth-seed Takuma Obayashi of Japan in the quarter-finals after defeating third-seed Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei in the round of 16.
This was Kiran George’s second defeat against Kunlavut Vitidsarn in three matches. The Indian shuttler, a winner of the Odisha Open 2022 and the Indonesia Masters 2023, had beaten Kunlavut Vitidsarn at the Malaysia International Series in 2017.